Matilda
About 37,280 American babies have been named Matilda since 1880, most of them around 2025. In 2025 it ranked 364th. About 16,000 Matildas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 11.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Matilda boys named Matilda
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 37,280
- Estimated living today
- 16,000
- Median age today
- 11
- Peak year
- 2025
- Best rank
- 364th
- Rank in 2025
- 364th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 37,270 / 10
How old the living Matildas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 37,280 babies given the name since 1880, about 16,000 are alive — 42 in every hundred. Roughly 10,000 of them are children and 2,300 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2014 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Germanic languages
From Middle English Matilda, from Old French Mathilde, from Old High German Mahthilt, Mehthilt, from Proto-West Germanic *Mahtihild, from Proto-Germanic *Mahtihildiz; compare German Mechthild, Old English Mæþhild.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Matildas
- Empress Matilda (1102–1167)Holy Roman Empress (1114–1125); claimant to the English throne
- Matilda of Flanders (1031–1083)wife of William the Conqueror and Queen consort of the Kingdom of England
- Matilda of Tuscany (1040–1115)Canossian dynasty countess of Tuscany (c.1046–1115)
- Matilda of Scotland (1080–1118)Queen consort of England
- Matilda of Boulogne (1105–1152)Countess of Boulogne and Queen Consort of England
- Caroline Matilda of Great Britain (1751–1775)Queen consort of Denmark and Norway, 1766–1772
- Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826–1898)American abolitionist, writer
- Matilda of England, Duchess of Saxony (1156–1189)English princess
People named Matilda with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Matilda is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Matilda is most concentrated in Pennsylvania (1.9×), New York (1.5×), New Jersey (1.5×), New Mexico (1.4×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2025
The most popular girls’ names the year Matilda peaked:
Matilda elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales girls | Matilda | 31,414 | 25th |
| Sweden girls | Matilda | 10,904 | 7th |
| Italy girls | Matilda | 5,031 | — |
| France girls | Matilda | 1,245 | 673rd |
| New Zealand girls | Matilda | 1,196 | 20th |
| Switzerland girls | Matilda | 1,055 | 94th |
| Scotland girls | Matilda | 857 | 78th |
| Ireland girls | Matilda | 830 | 97th |
| Norway girls | Matilda | 558 | 156th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Matilda | 319 | 91st |
| Poland girls | Matilda | 314 birth registrations | 223rd |
| Belgium girls | Matilda | 279 | 447th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Matilda: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Matilda | 812 | 0.065% | 90th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Matilda | 189 | 0.043% | 142nd |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Matilda | 52 | 0.080% | 40th |
| Romansh girls | Switzerland | Matilda | 2 | 0.054% | 11th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Matilda is most concentrated in Basel-Stadt, where 0.15% of children were given it – 56 of them.
Matilda: rank by region
In 2025, Matilda was given 5 times or more in 2 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Matilda | 416 | 12 |
| Brussels | Matilda | 194 | 6 |
In 2024, Matilda was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Matilda | 8 | 1 |
In 2025, Matilda was given 2 times or more in 3 regions of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Małopolskie | Matilda | 232 | 2 |
| Pomorskie | Matilda | 158 | 4 |
| Zachodniopomorskie | Matilda | 175 | 2 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Matilda appears in the lists for Brussels-Capital Region (194th) and Province of East Flanders (250th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Matilda by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 467 | 47th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Matilda among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Matilda | 4,324 | 23,706 |
Among girls in Finland this is mostly a middle name: of the 23,706 who carry it, 4,324 go by it.
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Matilda lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 1,078 women called Matilda were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coruña, A | Matilda | 54 | 0.091 | 719 |
| Lugo | Matilda | 14 | 0.083 | 813 |
| Pontevedra | Matilda | 33 | 0.067 | 861 |
| Madrid | Matilda | 249 | 0.067 | 909 |
| Barcelona | Matilda | 202 | 0.066 | 989 |
| Cantabria | Matilda | 19 | 0.062 | 946 |
Listed in 32 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 20 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Matilda against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.