Mateo
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- God's Gift
- Origin
- Spanish
About the Name Mateo
Mateo is the Spanish form of Matthew, descending through Late Latin Matthaeus from the Greek Matthaios, ultimately from the Hebrew Mattityahu meaning "gift of Yahweh" or "gift of God." Across most of the Spanish-speaking world, Mateo has been a standard Christian boys' name for nearly a millennium — anchored by the apostle Matthew, traditional author of the Gospel of Matthew, and reinforced by hundreds of Mateos across Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin American religious and political history.
What's distinctive about Mateo's recent American story is the speed of its uptake. For most of US naming history Mateo was used almost exclusively within Spanish-speaking American communities; SSA records show fewer than 100 baby Mateos born nationally in any given year through the 1980s. The name then climbed sharply through the 2000s and 2010s as part of a broader American shift toward Latinate boys' names — Mateo entered the US top 100 in 2010 and the top 10 by 2020.
The name's appeal is its layered cosmopolitanism: religiously anchored, easy to spell and pronounce in both English and Spanish, three syllables with clean vowels, and a tonal warmth that contrasts with the harder English form Matthew. Common nicknames are scarce — Mat and the rare Teo appear — though the name often lives without nickname use. International forms include Matteo (Italian, with double-T), Matthieu (French), Matthew (English), Matthaios (Greek), and the Hebrew original Mattityahu; the German Matthias is itself a separate but related Apostolic name (the apostle who replaced Judas Iscariot).
By Marvin Tang. Popularity figures use an imported selection of SSA records; SSA does not supply name meanings or etymologies. Editorial references, where available, are listed with the name explanation. Sources and coverage.
Quick Facts About Mateo
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual imported US counts for Mateo by recorded sex, from US Social Security Administration records. Highest count in the imported records: 2024 with 11,302 boys named Mateo (boy rank #7 that year).
Latest imported observation: in 2025, ranked #8 for boys (11,045 imported records). That's 1 places below its 2024 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Coverage: imported US Social Security card-application records, not a complete birth census. Historical coverage is narrower, including top-100 selection before 2000; recent imports also use catalog and rank filters. Missing rows can reflect those filters or source privacy limits and must not be read as zero or fewer than five uses. Spellings and recorded sex are kept separate.
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Look up Mateo across states
Compare this exact spelling in one year and recorded sex list. Missing state records remain unknown.
Observed State Ranks for Mateo
Average boy-name rank across the same 2016–2025 window, limited to 44 jurisdictions with every year imported. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings. This is an ordinal comparison, not a per-capita rate. States with missing years are excluded. For Mateo the lowest observed averages are in California, Texas, New Mexico.
Lowest observed average rank
| # | State | Avg rank | Imported count |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | #5 | 21,798 |
| 2 | Texas | #5 | 17,638 |
| 3 | New Mexico | #5 | 939 |
| 4 | Arizona | #6 | 3,503 |
| 5 | Nevada | #7 | 1,409 |
| 6 | Illinois | #11 | 4,378 |
| 7 | Colorado | #18 | 1,875 |
| 8 | Washington | #19 | 2,197 |
| 9 | Oregon | #23 | 1,104 |
| 10 | Florida | #25 | 5,743 |
Highest observed average rank
| # | State | Avg rank | Imported count |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mississippi | #246 | 169 |
| 2 | Kentucky | #148 | 453 |
| 3 | New Hampshire | #139 | 112 |
| 4 | Ohio | #134 | 1,174 |
| 5 | Alabama | #124 | 521 |
| 6 | Louisiana | #124 | 528 |
| 7 | Missouri | #119 | 740 |
| 8 | South Dakota | #116 | 141 |
| 9 | Pennsylvania | #111 | 1,342 |
| 10 | South Carolina | #93 | 628 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. Only states with all 10 annual observations for this spelling and recorded sex are compared. Missing states are excluded, not assigned zero. Average rank measures position in state rankings, not a per-capita rate. Local import filters and SSA privacy limits can both create gaps. Coverage and limitations.
Related Forms in This Catalog
Open each form for its own meaning, language history, and exact-spelling usage records.
Looking for names like Mateo?
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 Mateo to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Mateo against names with the largest imported counts for boys-name peers (top 8 with every year imported, 2016–2025). Names with missing annual observations are excluded from this comparison.
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