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Matej

Boys' name

Gift of YHWH (the Lord), through Matthaeus

Matej has been given to 139 babies in the U.S. since 2002. 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 2005, with 12 recorded.

Babies named Matej, 2024

1 in 557,000

Matej over time, 1880–2025

Boys
05101518801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Matej: meaning, origin, and history

Gift of YHWH (the Lord), through Matthaeus

Hebrew

What Matej means

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

Origin, language, and formation

Matej is used in Serbo-Croatian, Slovak and Slovene. Its origins include Hebrew.

Matej comes through Latin Matthaeus, Ancient Greek Ματθαῖος and Biblical Hebrew מַתִּתְיָהוּ.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Matthew and Matthaeus.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Serbo-Croatian, Matej is pronounced /mǎtej/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 139 boys were recorded with the name Matej between 2002 and 2024. Its highest annual count was 12 in 2005; its best national rank was #6,479 in 2005.

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 Matej?

Matej had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2024, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2024
1 in 557,000
6 of 3,342,801 births
Among boys only
1 in 287,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2024
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
386,177 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Matej 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 2024 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 386,177 children born in 2024 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Matej. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Matejs were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Matej was born before 2012 — so the typical Matej is around 13 today.

Median birth year
2012
About 13 years old
Biggest decade
2010s
42.4% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
100.0%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
139
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

2010s — 42.4% of all recorded uses (59).

Is Matej 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 2005 (12)
Years since peak
20
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
37.6% average annual change
Best rank ever
#6,479
2005

Spellings of Matej

Matej is not the most common spelling — Mateo is, with 37.8% against Matej's 0.04%.

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.

Matej around the world

Where Matej 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
    2005–2023
    #4,108
    in 2023
  • Northern Ireland
    2007–2007
    #357
    in 2007
  • Ireland
    2010–2023
    #770
    in 2023
  • France
    2008–2025
    #5,220
    in 2025
  • Canada
    2004–2024
    #3,231
    in 2024
  • South Australia
    1999–2008
    #726
    in 2008

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, Central Statistics Office, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS, NISRA 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.

Matej 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
#6,479
2005
Peak year
2005
12 that year
First recorded
2002
Last recorded
2024
All-time count
139
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Matej

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

MatisMattyMateiMatinMatrixMataeoMataioMatyasMatveiMatviyMataiMatoMatasMataoMatixMatveyMattiaMatanMattiMattisMathiusMatviiMattixMathan

Sibling names for Matej

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 Matej

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