How popular is the baby name Matilde in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Matilde.

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Popularity of the baby name Matilde


Posts that mention the name Matilde

Popular baby names in Italy, 2021

Flag of Italy
Flag of Italy

The Southern European country of Italy — that boot-shaped peninsula that juts out into the Mediterranean Sea — shares land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, and Slovenia.

Last year, Italy welcomed 400,249 babies.

What were the most popular names among these babies? Sofia and Leonardo.

Here are Italy’s top 50 girl names and top 50 boy names of 2021:

Girl Names

  1. Sofia, 5,578 baby girls (2.86%)
  2. Aurora, 4,991
  3. Giulia, 4,616
  4. Ginevra, 3,803
  5. Beatrice, 3,647
  6. Alice, 3,392
  7. Vittoria, 3,202
  8. Emma, 2,876
  9. Ludovica, 2,813
  10. Matilde, 2,633
  11. Giorgia, 2,359
  12. Camilla, 2,343
  13. Chiara, 2,320
  14. Anna, 2,291
  15. Bianca, 2,201
  16. Nicole, 2,169
  17. Gaia, 2,088
  18. Martina, 2,069
  19. Greta, 2,052
  20. Azzurra, 1,673
  21. Sara, 1,651
  22. Arianna, 1,647
  23. Noemi, 1,639
  24. Rebecca, 1,533
  25. Mia, 1,494
  26. Isabel, 1,422
  27. Adele, 1,349
  28. Chloe, 1,317
  29. Elena, 1,298
  30. Francesca, 1,260
  31. Gioia, 1,202
  32. Ambra, 1,171
  33. Viola, 1,152
  34. Carlotta, 1,149
  35. Cecilia, 1,144
  36. Diana, 1,117
  37. Alessia, 1,101
  38. Elisa, 1,086
  39. Emily, 1,070
  40. Marta, 1,066
  41. Maria, 989
  42. Margherita, 988
  43. Anita, 978
  44. Giada, 972
  45. Eleonora, 926
  46. Nina, 856
  47. Miriam, 842
  48. Asia, 823
  49. Amelia, 805
  50. Diletta, 804 – means “beloved” in Italian.

Boy Names

  1. Leonardo, 8,448 baby boys (4.12%)
  2. Alessandro, 4,975
  3. Tommaso, 4,973
  4. Francesco, 4,924
  5. Lorenzo, 4,642
  6. Edoardo, 4,369
  7. Mattia, 4,215
  8. Riccardo, 3,992
  9. Gabriele, 3,944
  10. Andrea, 3,860
  11. Diego, 2,946
  12. Matteo, 2,867
  13. Nicolò, 2,847
  14. Giuseppe, 2,740
  15. Antonio, 2,598
  16. Federico, 2,546
  17. Pietro, 2,247
  18. Samuele, 2,225
  19. Giovanni, 2,211
  20. Filippo, 2,113
  21. Enea, 1,963 – form of Aeneas.
    • According to Greek mythology, the Trojan hero Aeneas was an ancestor of twins Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome. One ancient source associates Aeneas’ name with the Greek adjective ainos, meaning “unspeakable, causing nervousness, fear, terror.”
  22. Davide, 1,925
  23. Christian, 1,738
  24. Gioele, 1,722
  25. Giulio, 1,713
  26. Michele, 1,685
  27. Marco, 1,541
  28. Gabriel, 1,439
  29. Elia, 1,403
  30. Luca, 1,400
  31. Salvatore, 1,374
  32. Vincenzo, 1,333
  33. Emanuele, 1,326
  34. Thomas, 1,322
  35. Alessio, 1,251
  36. Giacomo, 1,197
  37. Nathan, 1,192
  38. Liam, 1,174
  39. Simone, 1,166
  40. Samuel, 1,133
  41. Jacopo, 1,129
  42. Noah, 1,097
  43. Daniele, 1,050
  44. Giorgio, 1,025
  45. Ettore, 1,002 – form of Hector.
  46. Luigi, 996
  47. Daniel, 946
  48. Manuel, 936
  49. Nicola, 859
  50. Damiano, 830

Leonardo is still the clear favorite for baby boys, while Azzurra — no doubt inspired by Italy’s national soccer team gli Azzurri, “the Blues” — continues its rise among baby girls:

Graph of the popularity of the baby name Azzurra in Italy from 1999 to 2021.
Popularity of Azzurra in Italy, 1999-2021

Here are Italy’s 2020 rankings, if you’d like to compare last year to the year before.

Sources: How many babies are named…? – Istat, Istat Statistics, Behind the Name, Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (transl. by Gregory Nagy)

Image: Adapted from Flag of Italy (public domain). Graph from Istat.

Popular baby names in Italy, 2020

Flag of Italy
Flag of Italy

According to Italy’s ISTAT (Istituto Nazionale di Statistica), the most popular baby names in the country in 2020 were Sofia and Leonardo.

Here are Italy’s top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2020:

Girl Names

  1. Sofia, 5,604 baby girls (2.87%)
  2. Giulia, 5,012
  3. Aurora, 4,987
  4. Ginevra, 3,657
  5. Alice, 3,333
  6. Beatrice, 3,162
  7. Emma, 3,069
  8. Giorgia, 2,701
  9. Vittoria, 2,677
  10. Matilde, 2,545

Boy Names

  1. Leonardo, 8,604 baby boys (4.15%)
  2. Francesco, 5,422
  3. Alessandro, 5,009
  4. Lorenzo, 4,841
  5. Mattia, 4,711
  6. Tommaso, 4,308
  7. Gabriele, 4,237
  8. Andrea, 4,041
  9. Riccardo, 4,025
  10. Edoardo, 3,785

In the girls’ top 10, Matilde replaced Greta (now in 16th place).

The boys’ top 10 includes the same names, but in a slightly different order.

Notably, Leonardo held an even more commanding lead in 2020 (4.15%) than in 2019 (3.64%). More than 1 in 25 baby boys were named Leonardo last year.

Also notable is the rise of Azzurra during the early 21st century. I didn’t realize until writing about a Scots-Italian baby named Azzurra last year that this name could be a reference to Italy’s national soccer team, known as gli Azzurri (“the Blues”) because the players wear Savoy azure. The baby name Azzurra entered Italy’s top 50 in 2017 and was ranked 27th for girls last year.

Graph of the popularity of the baby name Azzurra in Italy from 1999 to 2020.
Popularity of Azzurra in Italy, 1999-2020
  • 2020: 1,334 Italian baby girls named Azzurra (ranked 27th)
  • 2019: 1,059 Italian baby girls named Azzurra (ranked 38th)
  • 2018: 1,041 Italian baby girls named Azzurra (ranked 40th)
  • 2017: 926 Italian baby girls named Azzurra (ranked 47th)
  • 2016: 788 Italian baby girls named Azzurra
  • 2015: 848 Italian baby girls named Azzurra
  • 2014: 628 Italian baby girls named Azzurra
  • 2013: 652 Italian baby girls named Azzurra
  • 2012: 540 Italian baby girls named Azzurra
  • 2011: 459 Italian baby girls named Azzurra

How high do you think it could climb?

In 2019, the top two names in Italy were also Sofia and Leonardo.

Sources: How many babies are named…? – Istat, Italy national football team – Wikipedia

Image: Adapted from Flag of Italy (public domain). Graph from Istat.

Where did the baby name Mateel come from in 1927?

Kansas newspaper editor Edgar Watson “E. W.” Howe published his first novel, The Story of a Country Town, in his own newspaper, the Atchison Daily Globe, in 1883.

Encyclopedia Britannica said the novel “was the first realistic novel of Midwestern small-town life,” but an early 20th-century review said that the realism wasn’t, in fact, very realistic at all: “[T]he test of veracity fails in the unrelieved gloom of the story, which is bereft of all sunshine and joyousness, and even of all sense of relation to happier things.”

One of the characters in the novel was pretty-but-shallow Mateel Shepherd, the daughter of a Methodist minister (named Rev. Goode Shepherd, naturally).

mateel, baby name, book, 1920s
Mateel Howe

E. W. Howe must have liked the name “Mateel” quite a bit, because he named one of his children Mateel in 1883.

Readers must have like it, too, becase the number of U.S. babies named Mateel rose in the 1880s and was at its highest from the 1890s to the 1910s, judging by the records I’ve seen.

But the rare name Mateel didn’t appear in the U.S. baby name data until 1927, and it only stuck around for a single year:

  • 1929: unlisted
  • 1928: unlisted
  • 1927: 6 baby girls named Mateel [debut]
  • 1926: unlisted
  • 1925: unlisted

Why?

Well, Mateel Howe went on to become a writer like her father. Her career seems to have peaked with her debut novel, Rebellion, which won the Dodd, Mead & Co. and Pictorial Review “First Novel Prize” of $10,000 in 1927.*

What was Rebellion about? Essentially, the book was about “the difficulties of a daughter living with a depressed, authoritative and demanding father.” (Hm…)

Though both Edgar and Mateel publicly denied that the characters and conflict were inspired by real life, Edgar cut Mateel out of his will soon after the book was published. Here’s how Time put it:

Left. By Editor-Author Ed Howe, an estate valued at $200,000; in Atchison, Kans. To Society Editor Nellie Webb of his Globe, he left $1,500. To Niece Adelaide Howe he left $50,000. To Sons Eugene Alexander and James Pomeroy he left the remainder except for $1, which went to Daughter Mateel Howe Farnham who in 1927 won a $10,000 prize for Rebellion, a novel in which she satirized her father.

Old-timey drama aside, I’m still left wondering about the name Mateel. Did E. W. Howe create it for the character, or discover it somewhere? (I do see a couple of early Mateels in Louisiana. “Cloteal” was often used for Clotilde there, so I wonder if “Mateel” arose as a form of Matilde…?)

What are your thoughts on the name Mateel?

Sources:

*The very same year, author Mazo de la Roche also won $10,000 in a novel-writing contest…

Popular and unique baby names in Portugal, 2015

Flag of Portugal
Flag of Portugal

According to data from the Instituto dos Registos e Notariado (IRN), the most popular baby names in Portugal in 2015 were Maria and João.

Here are Portugal’s top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2015:

Girl Names

  1. Maria, 5,324 baby girls
  2. Leonor, 1,999
  3. Matilde, 1,889
  4. Beatriz, 1,268
  5. Carolina, 1,228
  6. Mariana, 1,205
  7. Ana, 1,060
  8. Inês, 1,001 (Agnes)
  9. Margarida, 989
  10. Sofia, 950

Boy Names

  1. João, 1,932 baby boys
  2. Martim, 1,778
  3. Rodrigo, 1,666
  4. Santiago, 1,632
  5. Francisco, 1,593
  6. Afonso, 1,439
  7. Tomás, 1,409
  8. Miguel, 1,271
  9. Guilherme, 1,187
  10. Gabriel, 1,143

In the boys’ top ten, Gabriel replaced Duarte (a version of Edward).

The girls’ top ten includes the same ten names.

At the other end of the spectrum, some of the baby names used only once last year:

Unique Girl NamesUnique Boy Names
Billca, Djenyfer, Excel, Foricusa, Hadriela, Hedviges, Iok, Jannatul, Joelma, Krutgna, Leninha, Lwezzy, Moana, Muen, Nayuca, Otchali, Otchaly, Ruixiao, Suncar, Svenya, Tchawi, Tesla, Txissola, Uhenia, Urwa, Valcikleny, WilfaniaAnass, Bambo, Barack, Ben-Hur, Cleidir, Creation, Cheikh, Djassy, Djemo, Duarth, Eurilucio, Fredynilson, Gonzaga, Guto, Habacuque, Hetwik, Lukenny, Man, Mojo, Neculai, Otchali, Petko, Ruzgyar, Skyllen, Tcherstney, Tuttondele, Vanilson

Here are the 2014 rankings for Portugal.

Source: Borja-Santos, Romana. “No país da Maria e do João, a Luana e o Diego estão a ganhar terreno.” Público 5 Jan. 2016.

Image: Adapted from Flag of Portugal (public domain)