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Mathew vs Matteo

American parents have registered 77,745 Mathews since 1880, against 33,499 Matteos. But in 2025 it was Matteo that was commoner, 2,455 babies to 235.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Mathew against Matteo, 1880 to 2025 0 800 1.6k 2.4k 3.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Mathew Matteo

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 146 years in which either name was published, Mathew for 131 years and Matteo for 15 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Mathew Matteo
Total US births 77,74533,499
Most in one year 2,1842,589
Babies in 2025 2352,455
Estimated living today 68,00033,000
Median age today 357
Peak year 19902024
Best rank 148th boys138th boys
Rank in 2025 973rd146th
First recorded 18801911
Girls / boys 207 / 77,53816 / 33,483

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 Mathews alive today are over 35; half the Matteos are over 7. That is 28 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 Mathew Matteo
France 77044,230 Mattéo
Belgium 1008,735
England and Wales 3,2563,824
Scotland 676204
Ireland 393359
Poland 7550
Northern Ireland 4141

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: Mathew and Matteo.