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Madge

Girls' name

Pearl, through Margaret

Madge has been given to 13,430 babies in the U.S. since 1880. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1920, with 464 recorded.

Babies named Madge, 2016

1 in 734,000

Madge over time, 1880–2025

Girls
020040060018801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Madge: meaning, origin, and history

Pearl, through Margaret

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Madge means

Madge belongs to the name family reached through Madge → Margaret. Its meaning is “pearl”.

Origin, language, and formation

Madge is used in English.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Margaret.

Pronunciation and spelling

In English, Madge is pronounced /mæd͡ʒ/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 13,430 girls were recorded with the name Madge between 1880 and 2016. Its highest annual count was 464 in 1920; its best national rank was #217 in 1898.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Madge?

Madge had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2016, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2016
1 in 734,000
5 of 3,669,531 births
Among girls only
1 in 354,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2016
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
508,706 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Madge sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2016 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 508,706 children born in 2016 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Madge. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Madges were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Madge was born before 1919 — so the typical Madge is around 106 today.

Median birth year
1919
About 106 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
25.7% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
0.04%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
786
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1920s — 25.7% of all recorded uses (3,448).

Is Madge rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 1920 (464)
Years since peak
105
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
23.8% average annual change
Best rank ever
#217
1898

Spellings of Madge

Madge is not the most common spelling — Marie is, with 31.5% against Madge's 0.78%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Madge is used

Across 1910–2025, Madge was most concentrated in West Virginia — about 1 in 3,704 girls, against 1 in 19,407 across all states with data. It was least common in New Jersey (1 in —).

027 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1West Virginia1 in 3,704
  2. 2Kentucky1 in 5,000
  3. 3Arkansas1 in 5,556
  4. 4North Carolina1 in 7,143
  5. 5Tennessee1 in 7,143
  6. 6Oklahoma1 in 7,692
  7. 7Utah1 in 7,692
  8. 8Alabama1 in 10,000

Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Madge has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Madge around the world

Where Madge ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • Ireland
    1973–1997
    #440
    in 1997
  • France
    2015–2015
    #3,121
    in 2015
  • South Australia
    1950–1979
    #627
    in 1979

Popularity data from Central Statistics Office, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). CSO, CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0.

Madge in other languages

Cross-language forms and variants of Madge. Linked forms have their own page here.

MargoMaggieMaisieMargetMargitMargotMaireadMargitaMargretMarietaMargreteMargaretaMargareteMargarettMargaridaMargaritaMargretheMargarethaMargheritaMargueriteMargedMargrétMarjetaMarkéta

Variant forms from Wikidata (CC0). Most are used mainly outside the United States; U.S. birth records statistics cover US usage only.

Madge by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#217
1898
Peak year
1920
464 that year
First recorded
1880
Last recorded
2016
All-time count
13,430
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Madge

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

MadysonMaddieMadisynMadonnaMadalynMadilynMadilynnMadisenMadlynMadelynnMadalynnMadieMaddyMaddoxMaddisonMaddenMadinaMadelinMadysenMaddiMaddynMadalineMadelyneMadelyn

Names with a curve like Madge

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Madge, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

HesterEdytheDessieGussieLessieOmaLeotaErnaIolaIoneZelmaBertie

Sibling names for Madge

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Madge

Top names of 1920, Madge's peak yearThe 1920s in fullOther names that peaked in 1898More old lady namesGirls' names starting with MMargaret Variations & Nicknames