Madison
Meaning
a surname read as "son of Maud" or "son of Matthew"; presidential in weight, it was almost never a girls' first name until the 1980s, when it caught on and rewrote the map for surname names. Maddie is the inevitable, cheerful short form
Goes by Maddie
The story
Madison began as an English surname, read in the old records as son of Maud or son of Matthew, and for two centuries its weight was presidential: James Madison, father of the Constitution. As a girls' first name it essentially did not exist before the 1980s. Then came the mermaid. In the 1984 film Splash, Daryl Hannah's character picks her name off a Madison Avenue street sign, and Tom Hanks's character protests that Madison is not a name. America decided otherwise. The name entered the charts within that decade, surged through the 1990s, and peaked in the 2000s near the very top of the girls' list. We cannot prove the movie did it, but the timing is hard to ignore. It has eased since, settling into familiar, well-liked territory, having rewritten the map for surname names, with cheerful Maddie always close at hand.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Madison peaked in the 2000s.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
741 people · the #10,195 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 250,000 · median age 25
Among people named Madison living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 1990s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 38 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Madison
Most people given the name Madison 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 Madison deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Madison 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 Madison fits with your family’s names and surname.
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