Madeleine
- Pronunciation
- [Ma-de-leine]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Tower
- Origin
- French
About the Name Madeleine
Madeleine is the French form of Magdalena, ultimately descending from the Hebrew Magdalene meaning "of Magdala" — referring to the village of Magdala on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. The biblical Mary Magdalene was one of the most-prominent female followers of Jesus, present at the crucifixion (John 19:25) and the first to see the risen Christ on Easter morning (John 20:11–18) — making her one of the foundational female figures of Christian tradition.
The name has additional cultural anchors through the iconic French dessert the madeleine (the small shell-shaped sponge cake made famous by Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time 1913, where the taste of a madeleine triggers the narrator's involuntary memory) and through the iconic Madeline children's book series by Ludwig Bemelmans (using the alternate Madeline spelling, 1939–present).
Madeleine has been continuously used in French-Catholic American naming for over a century. Notable bearers include American politician Madeleine Albright (1937–2022, the iconic Czech-American diplomat and 64th US Secretary of State 1997–2001, the first woman to hold that position); American actress Madeleine Stowe (born 1958, the American actress of The Last of the Mohicans); and contemporary actresses Madeleine Madden and Madeleine Petsch. Madeleine has held a US top-300 girls' rank since 2000. The name's appeal is its layered Hebrew-French-Catholic pedigree combined with three flowing syllables — the in-built Mary Magdalene religious anchor, the strong Marcel Proust literary anchor, and the elegant French sophistication. Common nicknames Maddie (the dominant warm short form, casual and warm), Maddy, Lena (back-end shortening, a popular standalone name on its own), Eleanor (alternate back-end), and the rare Mads each carry distinct registers; the alternate spellings Madelyn, Madeline, Madilyn, and Madeleine have their own SSA tracking. International forms include Magdalena (Spanish/Italian/Polish/German), Maddalena (Italian alternate), Mafalda (Portuguese), Madeleine (French original), and the original Hebrew Magdalene.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Madeleine
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Madeleine by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2008 with 1,252 girls named Madeleine (girl rank #272 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #455 for girls (679 US births). That's 183 places below its 2008 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Madeleine Most Popular?
Average girl-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Madeleine the strongest states are District of Columbia, New Hampshire, Massachusetts.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | District of Columbia | #111 | 76 |
| 2 | New Hampshire | #181 | 43 |
| 3 | Massachusetts | #189 | 292 |
| 4 | Maine | #198 | 25 |
| 5 | Connecticut | #233 | 132 |
| 6 | Washington | #285 | 252 |
| 7 | Virginia | #290 | 270 |
| 8 | California | #301 | 1,092 |
| 9 | Maryland | #315 | 182 |
| 10 | New York | #331 | 510 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Madeleine in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Madison | Son Of A Mighty Warrior | Male | English |
Famous People Named Madeleine
1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Madeleine.
- Madeleine Albright — Politician (1937)
Looking for names like Madeleine?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Madeleine to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Madeleine against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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