Madelon
A French feminine name derived from Magdalene, meaning "of Magdala".
Name Census estimates that about 613 living Americans carry the first name Madelon. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Madelon today is around 57 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Madelon births was 1920 (53 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Madelon. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
People living today
613
~ 1 in 559,142 Americans
Peak year
1920
53 babies that year
Average age
57
years old
2017 SSA rank
#15,230
Tracked since 1897
Popularity
Madelon: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Madelon from the 1890s through to the 2010s, spanning 13 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 353 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1920s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Madelon by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Madelon during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Madelons live
The SSA's state-level files cover 8 states and territories. New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan recorded the most babies named Madelon, while West Virginia, Iowa, California recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 36 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Madelon
The name Madelon is a French feminine given name derived from the Old French name Madeleine, which itself comes from the ancient Aramaic name Magdalena meaning "woman from Magdala." Magdala was an ancient city on the Sea of Galilee in what is now Israel.
Madelon is thought to have first appeared as a distinct name from Madeleine in the Middle Ages, around the 12th-13th centuries. It was likely a pet form or diminutive version of the longer Madeleine used as a nickname. The spelling Madelon became more common in the 16th-17th centuries, particularly in France.
One of the earliest known references to the name Madelon is in the 17th century French song "Madelon," a popular soldiers' song during the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). The song lyrics tell the story of a young woman named Madelon who follows the army and is loved by many soldiers.
A famous bearer of the name was Madelon Claudet (1661-1701), a French painter and engraver active in the late 17th century. She was one of the few female artists admitted to the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris.
Another notable Madelon was Madelon Vriesendorp (1945-present), a Dutch artist and writer best known for her painted dreamlike urban landscapes and architectural fantasies. She co-founded the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) with her husband Rem Koolhaas.
In literature, the name appears in the 1893 French novel "Fort comme la Mort" (As Strong as Death) by Guy de Maupassant, where Madelon is the name of one of the main characters. The novel explores themes of love, desire, and the power of fate.
Madelon Stockwell (1923-2020) was an American actress and singer who had a prolific career on stage, film, and television spanning over 60 years. Some of her notable roles were in the original Broadway productions of "Guys and Dolls" and "Subways Are For Sleeping."
While not as common today as its root name Madeleine/Madeline, Madelon has endured as a distinctly French feminine name with a long history dating back to medieval times.
People
Madelon + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Madelon as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with M
Other first names starting with M with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Madelon: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Madelon?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 613 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Madelon going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 559,142 US residents.
Is Madelon a common name?
We classify Madelon as "Very Rare". It ranks above 86.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,787 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Madelon most popular?
The single biggest year for Madelon was 1920, when 53 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Madelon is about 57 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
Is Madelon a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Madelon in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.