Madeline
Meaning
"woman of Magdala," from Magdalene, the village on the Sea of Galilee; centuries of French use as Madeleine, plus a beloved picture-book heroine, keep it storybook-warm in English. Maddie waits inside
Goes by Maddie, Mads
The story
Madeline descends from Mary Magdalene, the woman of Magdala, a village on the Sea of Galilee, and reached English through centuries of French use as Madeleine. For American readers, though, the name belongs to a small girl in a Paris boarding school: Ludwig Bemelmans published the first Madeline picture book in 1939, and his fearless heroine has kept the name storybook-warm ever since. The name itself held steady through the first half of the twentieth century, dipped a little at midcentury, then jumped sharply in the 1990s, just as Madeline returned to screens in an animated series and a feature film. The timing is hard to ignore. It held near that high through the 2000s and 2010s and has eased only gently since. Maddie waits inside for everyday use, but the full name keeps its French polish.
Madeline around the world
One shared root links 9 names across 3 languages.
Shared root: from Magdala, the village on the Sea of Galilee (Aramaic magdala "tower"), via Mary Magdalene
The constellation
More branches
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Madeline peaked in the 2000s and the 2010s in nearly equal measure.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
294 people · the #19,324 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 1,000,000 · median age 33
Among people named Madeline living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 1980s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 21 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Madeline
Most people given the name Madeline in the United States are teenagers or young adults today.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Madeline deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Madeline truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Madeline fits with your family’s names and surname.
Keep exploring
Names like Madeline · Nicknames for Madeline · Middle names for Madeline
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