Mates

Boys' name

Diminutive of Matěj

Mates has been given to 16 babies in the U.S. since 2016. 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 2017, with 6 recorded.

Babies named Mates, 2024

1 in 669,000

Mates over time, 1880–2025

Boys

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Mates: meaning, origin, and history

Diminutive of Matěj

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Mates means

Mates is a diminutive of Matěj.

Origin, language, and formation

Mates is used in Czech.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Matěj.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Czech, Mates is pronounced [ˈmatɛs].

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 16 boys were recorded with the name Mates between 2016 and 2024. Its highest annual count was 6 in 2017; its best national rank was #11,680 in 2017.

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 Mates?

Mates 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 669,000; 5 of 3,342,801 births
Among boys only: 1 in 345,000; <0.01% of boys
Rank, 2024: Unranked; Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size: 463,412 kids; Even odds of a second one

Where Mates 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 463,412 children born in 2024 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Mates. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Matess were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Mates was born before 2017 — so the typical Mates is around 8 today.

Median birth year: 2017; About 8 years old
Biggest decade: 2010s; 68.8% of all use
Born in the last 25 years: 100.0%; A modern name
Recorded since 1950: 16; People you could plausibly meet

Choose a decade

2010s — 68.8% of all recorded uses (11).

Is Mates 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 2017 (6)
Years since peak: 8; Years
Year-to-year steadiness: Shifting; 20.0% average annual change
Best rank ever: #11,680; 2017

Spellings of Mates

Mates is not the most common spelling — James is, with 89.3% against Mates's <0.01%.

James89.3%5,250,638
Mateo2.2%126,693
Miles2.1%122,868
Mathew1.3%77,538
Myles1.1%64,512
Moses0.74%43,291
Matteo0.57%33,483
Tate0.47%27,400

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 Mates is used

Across 1910–2025, Mates was most concentrated in New York — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 832,740 across all states with data.

00 per 100,000

State popularity map

Most concentrated

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. Mates has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Mates 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: #11,680; 2017
Peak year: 2017; 6 that year
First recorded: 2016
Last recorded: 2024
All-time count: 16
Count in 2025: Under 5

Names similar to Mates

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

Matao Matais Matius Matia Mateu Matvii Mathu Matija Matua Matthw Mathai Mather Matis Matty Mateos Matsuo Mato Matus Matvei Matviy Mathys Mathue Mateja Matheis

Sibling names for Mates

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

For a sister

Raylee Aubrielle Harleigh Kinslee Aminah Spencer Adelia Emmeline

For a brother

Brecken Linus Arvin Titan Ramsey Kalvin Ishmael Nixon

Explore around Mates

Top names of 2017, Mates's peak year The 2010s in full Other names that peaked in 2017 Boys' names starting with M Czech Names Uncommon Czech Boy Names