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Madalyn vs Madison

American parents have registered 427,675 Madisons since 1880, against 23,222 Madalyns. Madison is still ahead, with 4,963 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Madalyn against Madison, 1880 to 2025 0 6k 12k 18k 24k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Madalyn Madison

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Of the 145 years in which either name was published, Madison for 122 years and Madalyn for 23 years. The lead changed hands 28 times.

16 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.

Side by side

  Madalyn Madison
Total US births 23,222427,675
Most in one year 1,14422,292
Babies in 2025 2734,963
Estimated living today 21,000421,000
Median age today 1920
Peak year 20082001
Best rank 292nd girls2nd girls
Rank in 2025 946th40th
First recorded 18991880
Girls / boys 23,222 / 0419,806 / 7,869

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Madalyn Madison
England and Wales 21418,835

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Madalyn and Madison.