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Mahmud

#13,187 in 2025Boys' name

Praised, laudable

Mahmud has been given to 244 babies in the U.S. since 1980. In 2025 it ranked #13,187 of 13,926 boys’ names in use. Its peak year was 2022, with 19 recorded.

Babies named Mahmud, 2025

1 in 663,000

Mahmud over time, 1880–2025

Boys
0510152018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Mahmud: meaning, origin, and history

Praised, laudable

Arabic

What Mahmud means

Mahmud means “praised, laudable”, associated with maḥmūd.

Dictionary etymologyReferences, data & attribution

Transliteration of Arabic مَحْمُود (maḥmūd, literally “praised, laudable”), the passive participle of the Form I verb حَمِدَ (ḥamida, “to praise”), from the triconsonantal root ح م د (ḥ m d). The name Muhammad comes from the same root, and has a similar meaning.

Excerpt from Wiktionary: Mahmud (English) · CC BY-SA 4.0

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Origin, language, and formation

Mahmud is used in English, Azerbaijani and Indonesian. Its origins include Arabic.

Mahmud comes through Arabic مَحْمُود.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include مَحْمُود.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Azerbaijani, Mahmud is pronounced [mɑhˈmud].

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 244 boys were recorded with the name Mahmud between 1980 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 19 in 2022; its best national rank was #5,142 in 2022.

Over 5 years its rank fell, from #9,231 in 2020 to #13,187 in 2025. Over 10 years its rank rose, from #13,290 in 2015 to #13,187 in 2025.

How common is Mahmud?

Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 663,000
5 of 3,315,165 births
Among boys only
1 in 342,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2025
#13,187
of 13,926 boys’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
459,581 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Mahmud sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2025 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 459,581 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Mahmud. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Mahmuds were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Mahmud was born before 2013 — so the typical Mahmud is around 12 today.

Median birth year
2013
About 12 years old
Biggest decade
2010s
34.0% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
78.3%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
244
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

2010s — 34.0% of all recorded uses (83).

Is Mahmud 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
−5,632
Places dropped
Rank vs 5 years ago
−3,956
Places dropped
Rank vs 10 years ago
+103
Places climbed
Births vs 10 years ago
1.00×
More babies than then
Share of its own peak
26.3%
Peak was 2022 (19)
Years since peak
3
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
61.5% average annual change
Best rank ever
#5,142
2022

Spellings of Mahmud

Mahmud is not the most common spelling — Ahmad is, with 49.1% against Mahmud's 0.59%.

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 Mahmud is used

Across 1910–2025, Mahmud was most concentrated in New York — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 1,211,258 across all states with data.

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1New York1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys 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. Mahmud has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Mahmud around the world

Where Mahmud 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.

  • England & Wales
    1998–2025
    #3,684
    in 2025
  • Ireland
    2006–2006
    #596
    in 2006
  • France
    2008–2024
    #5,535
    in 2024
  • Canada
    2017–2017
    #2,569
    in 2017

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Central Statistics Office, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques and Statistics Canada. ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. CSO data under CC BY 4.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence.

Mahmud by the numbers

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

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
#13,187
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
Down 3,956
Best rank ever
#5,142
2022
Peak year
2022
19 that year
First recorded
1980
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
244
Count in 2025
5

Names similar to Mahmud

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

MahamudMahariMahkaiMahziMahmoodMahamedMaheshMaheerMahlikMahanMahadMahidMohamudMahaadMahkiMaherMahadevMahinMahaanMahirMahamadouMahonriMahkariMahdi

Sibling names for Mahmud

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 Mahmud

Top names of 2022, Mahmud's peak yearThe 2020s in fullOther names that peaked in 2022Boys' names starting with M