Maddern
surname · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Maddern is a surname written in the Latin script, most frequently recorded in the United States. Recorded meaning: nickname for a person with a ruddy complexion, from an adjective derivative of Middle English mad(d)er ‘madder’, the dye plant (see Mader 1), here used in a transferred sense.
- AUAustralia
- GBUnited Kingdom
- USUnited States
Where the name is found, darker where our sources hold more of it. No national register counts its bearers anywhere we hold data, so the map carries no figures. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
nickname for a person with a ruddy complexion, from an adjective derivative of Middle English mad(d)er ‘madder’, the dye plant (see Mader 1), here used in a transferred sense.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Where in the world(measured from records)
Recorded in:
No national register we accept counts this name’s bearers, so the page lists where it is found and publishes no figure.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Bessie Maddern Londonb. 1876first wife of Jack London
- Merle Maddernb. 1887USAmerican actress (1887-1984)
- Victor Maddernb. 1928GBEnglish actor (1928–1993)
- Barry Maddernb. 1937AUAustralian lawyer
- Philippa Maddernb. 1952AUAustralian historian, academic and writer (1952-2014)
- Anne Maddernb. 1955AUAustralian politician
- Rebecca Maddernb. 1977AUAustralian journalist
- Joseph MaddernUSAmerican director
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 10 sources across 3 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AU Australia | SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present) | 2008 | 1 | — |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Maddern mean, and where does it come from?
- nickname for a person with a ruddy complexion, from an adjective derivative of Middle English mad(d)er ‘madder’, the dye plant (see Mader 1), here used in a transferred sense. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- In which country does Maddern have the most bearers?
- Maddern is most frequently recorded in the United States.
What do you want to know about Maddern?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/maddernThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 1,000 requests a day, and bulk access is licensed separately.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Maddern”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.