Mae
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in English: Diminutive of Margaret
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/mej/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Mae is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In the Philippines it is the 13th most common given name.
- CACanada≈1 in 11K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 13K
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 1.6Kas Ma
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Mae itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- #688 (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 457 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 11K (inferred from the name graph)
≈500,000 named Ma, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Canada, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Ma in US United States.
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)
‘front’ or ‘before’; not common in Japan. Some occurrences in America could be shortened versions of longer names beginning with this element.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 28 languages in the etymology graph.
How Mae is read(measured from records)
Mae is one spelling over 2 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- English76%
Diminutive of Margaret.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Spanish13%
dude, guy, man
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Mae 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈500,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.8K | — | Mae | 119 |
| PH Philippines | #13 | ≈69,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.6K | — | Mae | 178 |
| US United States | #339 | 25,052 | 1 in 13K | 38K | Ma | 457 |
| VN Vietnam | — | ≈17,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.7K | listed | Mae | 34 |
| JP Japan | — | ≈15,000 est. | ≈1 in 8.1K | — | Mae | 56 |
| CA Canada | #463 | ≈3,600 est. | ≈1 in 11K | 8 | Mae | 239 |
| AE United Arab Emirates | #351 | ≈2,700 est. | ≈1 in 3.7K | — | Mae | 67 |
| SG Singapore | #166 | ≈1,600 est. | ≈1 in 3.8K | — | Mae | 100 |
| QA Qatar | #303 | ≈730 est. | ≈1 in 3.3K | — | Mae | 32 |
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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender. 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)
Mae is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Japanese, ‘front’ or ‘before’; not common in Japan. Some occurrences in America could be shortened versions of longer names beginning with this element.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In French, Forme américaine de Marie; parfois considéré comme un diminutif de Maëlle.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
a variant of Maryam,
as a nameWhats in a name = Unaitwaje a Swahili book of names
In Japanese, unexplained.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
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)
- Mae Westb. 1893USAmerican actress, singer, screenwriter, and writer (1893–1980)
- Mae Marshb. 1894USAmerican actress (1894-1968)
- Eartha Kittb. 1927USnot in their usual nameAmerican singer and actress (1927–2008)
- Shirley Jonesb. 1934USnot in their usual nameAmerican singer and actress
- Tina Turnerb. 1939CHnot in their usual nameAmerican-born Swiss singer and songwriter (1939–2023)
- Brenda Leeb. 1944USnot in their usual nameAmerican singer and recording artist (born 1944)
- Mae Jemisonb. 1956USAmerican doctor and NASA astronaut
- Colleen Ballingerb. 1986USnot in their usual nameAmerican comedian, singer, actress, writer and media personality
- Mae Whitmanb. 1988USAmerican actress
- Mae Mullerb. 1997GBBritish singer
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)
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 79 sources across 42 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 25K | #1,393 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 594 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 145 | #1,393 |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 78 | — |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2024 | 8 | #536 |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 6 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2023 | 5 | — |
Reference works 6
- 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
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- 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
- Where does the name Mae come from?
- ‘front’ or ‘before’; not common in Japan. Some occurrences in America could be shortened versions of longer names beginning with this element. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- What are other forms of the name Mae?
- In the etymology graph, Maria, Margaret and Rita are forms of the same name in other languages; Molly is a recorded short or pet form; it is recorded as a short form of Mary and Marie.
- Is Mae a male or female name?
- Mae is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
- What does the name Mae mean?
- In English, Diminutive of Margaret.
- In which country does Mae have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 499 thousand people named Ma in China, more than in any other country we hold.
- How do you pronounce Mae?
- A machine transcription gives /mej/ (IPA) for English.
- How common is the name Mae?
- In the United States, the national register counted 25,052 people named Mae in 2020, about 1 in 13 thousand residents.
- How common is Mae compared with other names?
- In the Philippines, Mae is the 13th most common given name of 486,299 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Mae?
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/maeThe 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, “Mae” — the 13th most common given name in Philippines. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.