Humanverse

Mateo vs Mathias

American parents have registered 126,778 Mateos since 1880, against 15,544 Mathiases. Mateo is still ahead, with 11,057 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Mateo against Mathias, 1880 to 2025 0 3k 6k 9k 12k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Mateo Mathias

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 143 years in which either name was published, Mathias for 93 years and Mateo for 50 years. The lead changed hands 23 times.

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

Side by side

  Mateo Mathias
Total US births 126,77815,544
Most in one year 11,3551,087
Babies in 2025 11,0571,087
Estimated living today 125,00014,000
Median age today 68
Peak year 20242025
Best rank 7th boys312th boys
Rank in 2025 8th312th
First recorded 19041880
Girls / boys 85 / 126,6930 / 15,544

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.

Which name is older

Half of the Mathiases alive today are over 8; half the Mateos are over 6. That is 2 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

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 Mateo Mathias
France 22,725 Matéo40,875
Norway 75912,994
Belgium 2,3066,316
Austria 1,1345,756
Italy 7215,406
Switzerland 2,5091,574
England and Wales 2,874981
Poland 27177
Ireland 29749
Scotland 14720
Northern Ireland 483

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: Mateo and Mathias.