Madison
loc · Latin script
Meaning: 'Son of Madde', a medieval female personal name, a different form of Maud or of Magdalen
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Madison is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 923(measured from records)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 18K
- AUAustralia≈1 in 4.1K
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.
- United States (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 516 (measured from records)
- 1 in 923 (inferred from the name graph)
360,351 people, 2020
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
United States
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
'Son of Madde', a medieval female personal name, a different form of Maud or of Magdalen.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Madison 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.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | 360,351 | 1 in 923 | 356K | Madison | 516 |
| CN China | ≈16,000 est. | ≈1 in 87K | — | Madison | 16 |
| AU Australia | ≈6,300 est. | ≈1 in 4.1K | 79 | Madison | 188 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈3,600 est. | ≈1 in 18K | 33 | Madison | 197 |
| FR France | ≈3,500 est. | ≈1 in 19K | 5K | — | 6 |
| CA Canada | ≈3,100 est. | ≈1 in 12K | 47 | Madison | 227 |
| MO Macao | ≈52 est. | ≈1 in 12K | — | Madison | 5 |
360,351 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. 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; INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present). 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Madison is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, metronymic from the medieval female personal name Madde, a form of Maud (see Mould 1) or Magdalen (see Maudlin). IJames Madison (1751-1836), 4th President of the U.S. (1809-17), was bom in VA, the son of a planter. He was descended from John Madison, a ship’s carpenter from Gloucester, England, who had settled in VA in about 1653.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In English, An English surname originating as a matronymic; (US politics) used specifically of James Madison (1751–1836), a Founding Father and fourth president of the United States.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, James, 4th US president; US pi.
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, from an English surname, 'son of Maud'
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In English, English; child of Maud or Matthew
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- James Madisonb. 1751USPresident of the United States from 1809 to 1817 (1751–1836)
- Dolley Madisonb. 1768USFirst Lady of the United States from 1809 to 1817
- Madison Keysb. 1995USUS American tennis player
- Madison Davenportb. 1996USAmerican actress
- Madison Isemanb. 1997USAmerican actress
- Madison Pettisb. 1998USAmerican actress
- Bailee Madisonb. 1999USAmerican actress
- Mikey Madisonb. 1999USAmerican actress (born 1999)
- Madison Beerb. 1999USAmerican singer (born 1999)
- Maddie Zieglerb. 2002USnot in their usual nameAmerican dancer and actress
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 80 sources across 43 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 356K | #137 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 28K | #1,241 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 27K | #1,272 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 27K | #1,209 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 2024 | 5K | #976 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 4.9K | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 4.7K | #137 |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 369 | — |
| AU Australia | NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present) | 2018 | 79 | #89 |
| AU Australia | QLD BDM — Top 100 Baby Names Queensland (1960–present) | 2019 | 64 | — |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2024 | 47 | #66 |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 2024 | 33 | #135 |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
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 Madison mean, and where does it come from?
- 'Son of Madde', a medieval female personal name, a different form of Maud or of Magdalen. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How common is the name Madison?
- In the United States, the national register counted 360,351 people named Madison in 2020, about 1 in 923 residents.
- In which country does Madison have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 360 thousand people named Madison, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled madison.
- Where is Madison most common?
- Madison is densest in the United States, where the national register counts about 1 in 923 people carrying it.
What do you want to know about Madison?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/madisonThe 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, “Madison”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.