Name Awesome

Mat

Boys' name

Gift of YHWH (the Lord), through Matthew

Mat has been given to 794 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 1917, with 21 recorded.

Babies named Mat, 2013

1 in 729,000

Mat over time, 1880–2025

Boys
010203018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Mat: meaning, origin, and history

Gift of YHWH (the Lord), through Matthew

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Mat means

Mat belongs to the name family reached through Mat → Matthew → Matthaeus. Its meaning is “gift of YHWH (the Lord)”.

Origin, language, and formation

Mat is used in English.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Matthew and Matthaeus.

Pronunciation and spelling

In English, Mat is pronounced /mæt/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 794 boys were recorded with the name Mat between 1880 and 2013. Its highest annual count was 21 in 1917; its best national rank was #453 in 1881.

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 Mat?

Mat had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2013, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2013
1 in 729,000
5 of 3,645,938 births
Among boys only
1 in 378,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2013
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
505,435 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Mat 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 2013 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 505,435 children born in 2013 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Mat. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Mats were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Mat was born before 1924 — so the typical Mat is around 101 today.

Median birth year
1924
About 101 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
16.2% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
1.4%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
238
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1920s — 16.2% of all recorded uses (129).

Is Mat 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 1917 (21)
Years since peak
108
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
25.7% average annual change
Best rank ever
#453
1881

Where Mat is used

Across 1910–2025, Mat was most concentrated in California — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 2,041,998 across all states with data. It was least common in Kentucky (1 in —).

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1California1 in —
  2. 2Kentucky1 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. Mat has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Mat around the world

Where Mat 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
    2013–2013
    #4,685
    in 2013
  • France
    1998–2017
    #5,676
    in 2017

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics and Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques. ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0.

Mat by the numbers

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

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#453
1881
Peak year
1917
21 that year
First recorded
1880
Last recorded
2013
All-time count
794
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Mat

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

MatanMatixMataiMatinMattoxMateusMateenMateiMattixMattewMattisMatoMattyMattiaMatisMathisMatveyMateuszMatheoMattieMatyasMatheusMatisseMattheo

Sibling names for Mat

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 Mat

Top names of 1917, Mat's peak yearThe 1910s in fullOther names that peaked in 1881Boys' names starting with M