Madison
A feminine name of English origin meaning "son of Maddison".
Roughly 413,526 people in the United States go by the first name Madison, which ranks #46 nationally when sorted by estimated living bearers. It is a predominantly female name (98.1% of registrations). The average person named Madison today is around 20 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Madison births was 2001 (22,292 babies). In terms of living bearers, it sits close to Peter (410,601).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Madison. 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.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Madison with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Madison started out as a boys' name but over the decades crossed over and is now given to girls far more often.
- • Although Madison is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 7,852 boys registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
414K
~ 1 in 829 Americans
Peak year
2001
22,292 babies that year
Average age
20
years old
2024 SSA rank
#46
Tracked since 1880
Census
Madison in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 360,348 people with the first name Madison, which placed it at #137 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#137
National first-name rank
People counted
360K
360,348 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
119.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
75.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Madison
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Madison is White at 75.6%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (9.1%) and Black (7.7%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Madison described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Madison at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White75.6% · 272,451
- Hispanic or Latino9.1% · 32,898
- Black or African American7.7% · 27,857
- Two or more races5.2% · 18,739
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.7% · 5,957
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.7% · 2,446
Gender
Gender distribution for Madison
Madison leans heavily female at 98.1% of total registrations, but 7,852 boys have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Madison as a male name
- Ranked #3,302 in 2024
- 36 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1995 (269 births)
Madison as a female name
- Ranked #46 in 2024
- 4,563 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2001 (22,166 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Madison leans strongly female. 355,609 people counted with this name were female (98.7%), compared with 4,742 male bearers (1.3%).
Popularity
Madison: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Madison from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 194,207 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 2000s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Madison 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 Madison during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Madisons live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, Texas, Florida recorded the most babies named Madison, while Vermont, Wyoming, District of Columbia recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 8,191 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Madison
The name Madison originated as a surname derived from the medieval English place name "Madingden" or "Maddingden". This place name comes from the Old English words "mæddingdenu" meaning "valley of the sons of Mada". The Mada family took their name from a Old English personal name "Mada", possibly derived from the word "madding" meaning "celebrated".
In medieval times, people with the surname Madison likely came from the village of Madingden, in Cambridgeshire, England. Early records show the name spelled in various ways such as Madinden, Madyngdene, and Madingdene. The first recorded instance of the surname Madison dates back to 1260 in the Hundred Rolls of Cambridgeshire.
The name Madison did not emerge as a popular given name until much later. One of the earliest known bearers of the first name was Sir John Madison (1619-1698), an English merchant and politician who served as Lord Mayor of London in 1693. Around this time, the name began appearing occasionally as a masculine given name.
Another early bearer was James Madison (1751-1836), one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and the 4th President, serving from 1809 to 1817. His prominence helped establish Madison as an accepted masculine name in America.
In the 19th century literary world, Madison Julius Cawein (1865-1914) was an American poet, playwright and novelist who wrote extensively about Kentucky. On the other side of the Atlantic, British photographer Georgina Madison Sampson (1872-1964) was a pioneer of color photography and an important figure in the Pictorialist movement.
Transitioning into the 20th century, Madison Stratton (1910-1990) was a celebrated American architect who designed several landmark buildings in his hometown of Dallas, Texas. His contemporary, Madison Cooper (1925-2020), was a prolific British actor best known for his roles in films like The Thirty-Nine Steps and The Ipcress File.
People
Madison + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Madison 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
Madison: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Madison?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 413,526 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Madison 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 829 US residents.
Is Madison a common name?
We classify Madison as "Common". It ranks above 99.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 422,660 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Madison most popular?
The single biggest year for Madison was 2001, when 22,292 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Madison is about 20 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Madison in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 360,348 people with the name Madison, or 119.31 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #137 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Madison in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Madison?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Madison leans strongly female. 355,609 people counted with this name were female (98.7%), compared with 4,742 male bearers (1.3%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Madison?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Madison is White at 75.6%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (9.1%) and Black (7.7%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Madison most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Madison in the 2020 Census, accounting for 75.6% (272,451 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Madison in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Madison a female name?
Yes, 98.1% of people registered as Madison 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.
Is Madison still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Madison in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Madison can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
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.
How many people are called Madison?
Find out how many Americans are named Madison on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — a quick modern estimate with the living-bearer count front and centre.