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Matthew vs Matthias

American parents have registered 1,659,655 Matthews since 1880, against 13,676 Matthiases. Matthew is still ahead, with 7,008 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Matthew against Matthias, 1880 to 2025 0 15k 30k 45k 60k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Matthew Matthias

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

Matthew has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2025, when Matthew had 7,008 and Matthias had 854.

Side by side

  Matthew Matthias
Total US births 1,659,65513,676
Most in one year 50,526854
Babies in 2025 7,008854
Estimated living today 1.5 million13,000
Median age today 369
Peak year 19832025
Best rank 3rd boys372nd boys
Rank in 2025 32nd372nd
First recorded 18801880
Girls / boys 5,580 / 1,654,0750 / 13,676

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 Matthews alive today are over 36; half the Matthiases are over 9. That is 27 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 Matthew Matthias
England and Wales 81,2841,214
France 4,86015,780
Scotland 14,45815
Ireland 12,25670
Northern Ireland 6,2794
Belgium 1,4353,889
Italy 5642,966
Switzerland 4331,308
Poland 71985
Norway 454277

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: Matthew and Matthias.