Mafalda
given name · Latin script
Meaning: From Germanic Matilda, via Italian/Portuguese tradition; 'strength in battle'
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/mafalda/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Mafalda is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Portugal than in any other country, where it is the 79th most common given name.
- PTPortugal≈1 in 548(inferred from the name graph)
- ARArgentina≈1 in 15K
- ITItaly≈1 in 20K
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.
- Portugal (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 144 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 548 (inferred from the name graph)
≈19,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Portugal, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
From Germanic Matilda, via Italian/Portuguese tradition; 'strength in battle'.
Sources 1
- Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Attested across 13 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Mafalda 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PT Portugal | #79 | ≈19,000 est. | ≈1 in 548 | 460 | Mafalda | 144 |
| BR Brazil | — | 3,805 | 1 in 56K | 6K | Mafalda | 74 |
| AR Argentina | #845 | ≈3,100 est. | ≈1 in 15K | 66 | Mafalda | 38 |
| IT Italy | — | ≈3,100 est. | ≈1 in 20K | 3 | Mafalda | 52 |
| PE Peru | — | ≈810 est. | ≈1 in 40K | — | Mafalda | 30 |
| CL Chile | #796 | ≈500 est. | ≈1 in 37K | 1 | Mafalda | 31 |
| UY Uruguay | #620 | 103 | 1 in 33K | 103 | Mafalda | 11 |
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: RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); IRN — Nomes próprios mais frequentes (2017–2023); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); IBGE — Nomes (census name API); SRCEI — Nombres más comunes (guaguas, 1920–2021); ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend); INE Uruguay — Nombres más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public). 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)
Mafalda 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 Spanish, Variante portuguesa de Matilde.
as a nameDiccionario etimológico de nombres propios
In French, Origine germanique, signifie « force au combat ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In German, weibl. Vom. germanischen Ur sprungs (
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
Portuguese and Italian: variant of MATILDA , used especially in Portugal. The name was taken there by a princess from the royal house of Savoy, who in 1146 went to marry the Portuguese king. St Mafalda (1203–52) was a daughter of King Sancho II of Portugal. King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, a member of the house of Savoy, gave it to a daughter of his in 1902.
as a word
In Latvian, Sievietes vārds
as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)
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)
- Matilde d'Altavillab. 1060ESnot in their usual nameDaughter of Robert Guiscard; Countess of Barcelona, Viscountess of Narbonne
- Mafalda of Portugalb. 1149PTPortuguese infanta
- Mafalda de Castillab. 1191ESSpanish noblewoman
- Mafalda of Portugalb. 1197PTPortuguese infanta, Castilian queen consort, and nun
- Princess Mafalda of Savoyb. 1902ITItalian princess (1902–1944), landgravine of Hesse from 1940 to 1944
- Mafalda Faverob. 1905ITsinger (1905-1981)
- Mafalda Veigab. 1965PTPortuguese singer-songwriter
- Mafalda Marafustab. 1991PTPortuguese actress
- Princess Mafalda of Bulgariab. 1994ESSpanish singer
- Mafalda Carbonellb. 2008ESactress
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 60 sources across 28 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 6K | #2,963 |
| BR Brazil | Brasil.IO genero-nomes (IBGE Censo 2010 mirror, CC-BY-SA) | — | 6K | #1,302 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 3.8K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 3.8K | #3,305 |
| PT Portugal | IRN — Nomes próprios mais frequentes (2017–2023) | 2019 | 460 | #20 |
| UY Uruguay | INE Uruguay — Nombres más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public) | — | 103 | — |
| UY Uruguay | INE Uruguay — Nombres más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public) | — | 103 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 1990 | 33 | — |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Nombres de nacimientos (2012–present) | 2023 | 6 | #2,850 |
| AR Argentina | datos.gob.ar — nombres.datos.gob.ar per-name lookup (1922–2015) | 2015 | 4 | — |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — births 1922–2015 (Kaggle mirror) | 2015 | 4 | — |
| IT Italy | ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend) | 2024 | 3 | #2,608 |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Wikipedia given-name 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 Mafalda mean, and where does it come from?
- From Germanic Matilda, via Italian/Portuguese tradition; 'strength in battle'. Recorded by Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education).
- How do you pronounce Mafalda?
- A machine transcription gives /mafalda/ (IPA) for Spanish.
- What are other forms of the name Mafalda?
- In the etymology graph, Matilde, Mathilde and Mattie are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Mafalda have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 19 thousand people named Mafalda in Portugal, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled mafalda.
- Is Mafalda a male or female name?
- Mafalda 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.
- How common is the name Mafalda?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 3,805 people named Mafalda in 2022, about 1 in 56 thousand residents.
- How common is Mafalda compared with other names?
- In Portugal, Mafalda is the 79th most common given name of 19,352 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Mafalda?
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/mafaldaThe 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, “Mafalda” — the 79th most common given name in Portugal. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.