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Mate

Boys' name

Multiple documented origins; meaning depends on tradition

Mate has been given to 75 babies in the U.S. since 1978. 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 2016, with 8 recorded.

Babies named Mate, 2020

1 in 477,000

Mate over time, 1880–2025

Boys
0246818801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Mate: meaning, origin, and history

Multiple documented origins; meaning depends on tradition

Danish

What Mate means

Mate has more than one naming route in the cited origin entries: distinct naming traditions.

The naming story behind Mate

A separate documented entry treats Mate as a form of Matthew. That is a personal-name relationship, which differs from translating the letters of the modern spelling into one universal English word. The linked origin entry identifies the context of this relationship.

A separate documented entry treats Mate as a diminutive of Matej. That is a personal-name relationship, which differs from translating the letters of the modern spelling into one universal English word. The linked origin entry identifies the context of this relationship.

Origin, language, and formation

Mate is used in Greenlandic. Its origins include Danish.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Greenlandic, Mate is pronounced /mati/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 75 boys were recorded with the name Mate between 1978 and 2020. Its highest annual count was 8 in 2016; its best national rank was #6,432 in 1978.

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 Mate?

Mate had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2020, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2020
1 in 477,000
7 of 3,342,313 births
Among boys only
1 in 247,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2020
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
330,960 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Mate 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 2020 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 330,960 children born in 2020 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Mate. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Mates were born

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

Median birth year
2013
About 12 years old
Biggest decade
2010s
50.7% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
93.3%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
75
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

2010s — 50.7% of all recorded uses (38).

Is Mate 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 2016 (8)
Years since peak
9
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
18.4% average annual change
Best rank ever
#6,432
1978

Spellings of Mate

Mate is not the most common spelling — Mark is, with 38.1% against Mate's <0.01%.

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.

Mate around the world

Where Mate 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
    2008–2023
    #4,992
    in 2023
  • Ireland
    2009–2013
    #711
    in 2013
  • France
    1979–2022
    #7,105
    in 2022
  • Canada
    2004–2018
    #2,905
    in 2018
  • South Australia
    1955–2013
    #754
    in 2013

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

Mate 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
#6,432
1978
Peak year
2016
8 that year
First recorded
1978
Last recorded
2020
All-time count
75
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Mate

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

MatoMatsMatiMataoMatisMathMattyMatveiMatviyMataioMataeoMatrixMattiMateiMatviiMatinMatyasMatasPateMataiMatejKateMatuaMatrim

Sibling names for Mate

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 Mate

Top names of 2016, Mate's peak yearThe 2010s in fullOther names that peaked in 1978Boys' names starting with MGreenlandic Boy NamesGreenlandic Names