Magdelena

given name · Latin script

Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

/məɡdɛɫɛnə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Magdelena is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in South Africa than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • ZASouth Africa≈1 in 25K(inferred from the name graph)
  • USUnited States1 in 537K
  • JMJamaica≈1 in 171K

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

South Africa (inferred from the name graph)

≈2,200 people, est.

Sources
100 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 25K (inferred from the name graph)

South Africa, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin

No verified etymology recorded for this name yet — the entries below are drawn from usage statistics and the name graph.

Sources 1

Where in the world(measured from records)

Magdelena counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.

Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.

Where Magdelena is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
ZA South Africa≈2,200 est.≈1 in 25K—Magdelena14
US United States6191 in 537K616Magdelena100
GB United Kingdom≈87 est.≈1 in 752K—Magdelena21
NL Netherlands801 in 216K80Magdelena3
PH Philippines≈67 est.≈1 in 1.6M—Magdelena5
DO Dominican Republic≈40 est.≈1 in 259K—Magdelena4
JM Jamaica≈16 est.≈1 in 171K—Magdelena1
LT Lithuania≈13 est.≈1 in 204Klisted——

Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.

Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); the lt-vlkk-vardai register. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).

Other names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Magdelena is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • French given name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, South Africa, United States

    Also written Magdéléna, Magdeléna

  • Bulgarian given name7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Bulgaria, United States, Croatia, Russia

    Languages: Bulgarian, Croatian

    Also written Магделена

  • Lithuanian given name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Spain, United States, Lithuania

    Languages: Lithuanian, Latvian

    Also written Magdelēna

  • Turkish given name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Türkiye

    Also written Mağdelena

35 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

  • Marina Joubertb. 1963ZAnot in their usual nameSouth African science communicator and researcher

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).

How to address them(machine-generated)

InformalHi Magdelena,

A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 12 sources across 7 countries.

Official registers attesting Magdelena
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020616#17,668
NL NetherlandsMeertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018)—80#6,363
NL NetherlandsMeertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017)—20#19,561
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)200215—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)199715—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)199315—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)199413—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)201112—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)200412—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)199512—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)198111—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)200610—

Reference works 2

  • Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
  • 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

How do you pronounce Magdelena?
A machine transcription gives /məɡdɛɫɛnə/ (IPA) for English.
Is Magdelena a male or female name?
Magdelena is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
In which country does Magdelena have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 2.2 thousand people named Magdelena in South Africa, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled magdelena.
How common is the name Magdelena?
In the United States, the national register counted 619 people named Magdelena in 2020, about 1 in 537 thousand residents.

What do you want to know about Magdelena?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/magdelena

The payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.

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, “Magdelena”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Magdelena parses inside a full name →