Maite
Meaning
“Basque for 'beloved', or a Spanish contraction of Maria and Teresa”
Also written Maitê.
The story
Maite is a short name with two full histories, and Behind the Name keeps separate entries for them. One is Spanish: a contraction of Maria and Teresa, two classics folded into five letters. The other is Basque: maite is the Basque word for beloved, still an everyday word, whose deeper origin Wiktionary hedges as probably a Celtic loan. No record decides which door a given Maite came through; the name simply holds both. The American paper trail starts in the 1960s and grew in every completed decade from the 1980s through the 2010s, reaching 1,811 girls in that last full decade, with 1,102 already in the 2020s, more than half that total with years to run. In Brazil the written form is Maitê, which this site's Portuguese pages headline, and the census counts 59,696 bearers across the name's spellings, with a median age of 2. Chile ranked the name 14th in 2021, Uruguay 18th in 2022.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Maite peaked in the 2000s and the 2020s in nearly equal measure.
Popularity in Brazil
59,696 people · the #506 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 3,401 · median age 2
Among people named Maite living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 2010s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 39,533 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Maite
Most people given the name Maite in the United States are children or teenagers today. The name belongs to this generation.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Maite deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Maite 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 Maite fits with your family’s names and surname.
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