Mattie
Meaning
diminutive of Martha, 'lady/mistress' (sometimes also short for Matilda)
The story
Mattie grew up as a diminutive of Martha, the Aramaic name meaning lady or mistress of the house, though plenty of Matildas have answered to it too. It belongs to the great age of American nicknames given whole: when the records open in the 1890s, Mattie already stood on its own on birth certificates, no formal name required, and it stayed common through the early decades of the century. Readers will know Mattie Ross, the unshakable fourteen-year-old who narrates True Grit, a character whose plain steel suits the name perfectly. Like most of its vintage, Mattie faded through the midcentury, reaching its quietest point in the 1970s, then turned around: the decades since have brought a slow, steady climb, part of the wider return of grandmother-era nicknames. It now sits at a comfortable middle level, familiar but not everywhere, an old name with its boots on.
The formal names behind Mattie
Mattie is an established short form of each of these names.
Martha · Aramaic origin · lady, mistress; Princess Märtha Louise of Norway, and historically Crown Princess Märtha, celebrated for aiding Norwegian refugees during WWII
Matilda · Germanic origin · battle-mighty
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Mattie peaked in the 1890s and the 1900s in nearly equal measure.
The Mattie deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Mattie 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 Mattie fits with your family’s names and surname.
Does Mattie fit YOUR family?
nametree reads your family’s names and finds the ones that belong. Free, private, no ads.
Add Mattie to your family’s tree →