Mattew
A masculine given name of Hebrew origin meaning "gift of God".
Name Census estimates that about 1,167 living Americans carry the first name Mattew. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Mattew today is around 36 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Mattew births was 1987 (58 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Mattew. 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
1.2K
~ 1 in 293,706 Americans
Peak year
1987
58 babies that year
Average age
36
years old
2024 SSA rank
#11,812
Tracked since 1925
Census
Mattew in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 2,326 people with the first name Mattew, which placed it at #6,777 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
#6,777
National first-name rank
People counted
2.3K
2,326 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.8
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
62.5% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Mattew
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Mattew is White at 62.5%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (24.6%) and Black (6.1%). 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 Mattew 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 Mattew at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White62.5% · 1,453
- Hispanic or Latino24.6% · 572
- Black or African American6.1% · 142
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.8% · 66
- Two or more races2.8% · 64
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.2% · 29
Popularity
Mattew: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Mattew from the 1920s through to the 2020s, spanning 9 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1980s, with 433 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1980s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Mattew 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 Mattew during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Mattews live
The SSA's state-level files cover 5 states and territories. California, New York, Michigan recorded the most babies named Mattew, while Texas, Illinois, Michigan recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 20 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Mattew
The name Matthew is derived from the Hebrew name Mattityahu, which means "gift of Yahweh" or "gift of God". It is a biblical name that can be traced back to the apostle Matthew, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus Christ. The name gained popularity after the spread of Christianity across Europe and the Middle East.
The earliest recorded use of the name Matthew can be found in the New Testament of the Bible. Matthew, also known as Levi, was a tax collector before becoming one of the apostles. The Gospel of Matthew, one of the four canonical gospels, is traditionally attributed to him.
In the Middle Ages, the name Matthew was widely used among European Christians, particularly in England and France. During this period, several notable figures bore this name, including Matthew Paris (c. 1200-1259), an English Benedictine monk and chronicler, and Matthew of Westminster (c. 1300-1360), an English chronicler and monk.
In the Renaissance period, Matthew Tindal (c. 1657-1733) was an English philosopher and writer who advocated for deism, a belief in the existence of God based on reason and observation rather than revelation. Another notable figure was Matthew Flinders (1774-1814), an English navigator and cartographer who was the first to circumnavigate Australia and identify it as a continent.
During the Reformation, Matthew Zell (c. 1477-1548) was a German Protestant reformer and one of the first supporters of Martin Luther. In the 17th century, Matthew Hale (1609-1676) was an influential English lawyer and judge, renowned for his legal treatises and commitment to justice.
Other famous individuals with the name Matthew include the American playwright Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), known for his poetry and literary criticism, and Matthew Fontaine Maury (1806-1873), an American naval officer and oceanographer who pioneered the study of ocean currents and winds.
People
Mattew + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Mattew 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
Mattew: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Mattew?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 1,167 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Mattew 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 293,706 US residents.
Is Mattew a common name?
We classify Mattew as "Rare". It ranks above 91.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,227 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Mattew most popular?
The single biggest year for Mattew was 1987, when 58 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Mattew is about 36 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Mattew in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 2,326 people with the name Mattew, or 0.77 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #6,777 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 Mattew 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 Mattew?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Mattew appears almost entirely male. Of the 2,326 people counted with this name, 99.6% were male and only a very small share were female. 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 Mattew?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Mattew is White at 62.5%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (24.6%) and Black (6.1%). 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 Mattew most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Mattew in the 2020 Census, accounting for 62.5% (1,453 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 Mattew in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Mattew a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Mattew in the SSA data are male. 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 Mattew still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Mattew 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 Mattew 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 share the name Mattew?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.