Matthews

surname · English · Latin script

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

Matthews is a surname, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country, where it is the 40th most common given name. It appears chiefly in English and Welsh, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: patronymic from Matthew.

rarermore common
  • PLPoland1 in 101◐
  • AUAustralia1 in 138
  • ITItaly1 in 229

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈1.9M ●

across 10 countries

#131 ●

of 16M given names

7 ●

recorded for this name

Sources
605 ●

13M records

Official registry-verified

1 in 101 ◐

Poland

Spellings & scripts●

MatthewLatin · English●11M records
МатфейCyrillic · Russian●2.8K records
מתיוHebrew · Hebrew●2K records
แมทธิวThai · Thai●373 records
ᲛეთიუGeorgian · Georgian●34 records
마태오Hangul · Korean●15 records
ΜατεοGreek · Greek●5 records

5 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Matthew in US United States, GB United Kingdom, AU Australia and 15 more, Matteo in IT Italy, BR Brazil, ES Spain and 2 more, Mateusz in PL Poland, NO Norway and Matthieu in FR France, BE Belgium.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin●

patronymic from Matthew. In North America, this form has assimilated numerous vernacular derivatives in other languages of Latin Mat(t)hias and Matthaeus.

Sources 1

  • Dictionary of American Family Names

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Matthews is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States#401,313,91810M rec.1 in 2531.3MMatthew605
GB United Kingdom#37913,662667K rec.—70Matthew331
AU Australia#14818,591493K rec.—156Matthew352
PL Poland#33377,592△111K rec.1 in 101378KMateusz235
CA Canada#39261,063189K rec.—65Matthew272
IT Italy#23219,081202K rec.—2.4KMatteo257
FR France#187152,590284K rec.1 in 445153KMatthieu390
NG Nigeria#5682,816103K rec.——Matthew139
PH Philippines#38656,52828K rec.——Matthew144
ES Spain#96754,981△20K rec.1 in 91055KMatteo140
AR Argentina#88837,45229K rec.—7.9KMatteo62
NZ New Zealand#1434,34329K rec.—10Matthew179

Roughly 1.3M people in United States bear this name (about 1 in 253). Estimates project the name's share of our records onto national population, so each is only as good as the record base beside it — the Basis column gives that base; rows marked △ rest on fewer records than the estimate itself and are order-of-magnitude at best.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • English1.4M83%
  • Welsh54K3%
  • 46K3%
  • Spanish45K3%
  • German12K1%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
English1,396,30783%
Welsh53,6513%
45,8323%
Spanish45,2223%
German11,6691%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Matthews is also recorded as 3 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish surname78K records spelled Matthews8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, France, United Kingdom, Brazil

    Languages: Spanish, French, Portuguese

    Also written Matthew'S, M̶a̶t̶th̶e̶w̶s̶

  • a separate surname51K records spelled Matthews2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Italy

    Also written Matthew-S

  • English surname13K records spelled Matthews96 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Australia, India

    Languages: English, Hindi, German

    Also written Mathews, แม, มะอีลา, Mae, Maerim

71 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Matthews is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In English, used as an Americanized form of McMahon.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • In English, An English surname originating as a patronymic derived from the given name Matthew.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In English, son of Matthew.

    as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

  • In Irish, This English name, numerous in Ulster and Louth, is used also as a synonym of MacMahon there

    as a nameThe Surnames of Ireland

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Over time●

020406019001950200041 · 1988

Show as table
Matthews in SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present), United States, 1882–2025
Yearrecords
18825
18945
19035
19065
19096
19117
19126
19137
19149
19157
191611
191713
191813
191916
192019
192112
192211
192316
192415
19259
192611
192711
19289
192913
193010
19318
19329
193312
19349
19357
19368
19376
19388
19395
194114
194210
194310
194414
194513
19468
194714
194814
19497
195015
195114
195211
195317
19549
19559
195611
195712
195811
195912
196012
196110
196212
19637
19646
196517
196611
196717
196818
196910
197017
197113
197215
19737
197410
197519
197611
197718
197817
197914
198018
198123
198222
198328
198434
198521
198630
198728
198841
198924
199025
199114
199221
199319
199411
199517
199615
199715
199816
199923
200030
200113
200218
200318
200414
200521
200613
200720
200814
200914
201010
20116
20128
201310
201410
201517
201610
20179
201810
20197
202014
20219
20227
202317
202422
202510

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 119 years between 1882–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

1850190019502000Junius Matthews, b. 1890Stanley Matthews, b. 1915Dakin Matthews, b. 1940Chris Matthews, b. 1945Vincent Matthews, b. 1947Kiki Dee, b. 1947Dave Matthews, b. 1967William Regal, b. 1968Sinéad Matthews, b. 1980Pippa Middleton, b. 1983

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence●

Attested in 53 sources across 32 countries.

Official registers attesting Matthews
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010131K#226
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020126K#234
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000125K#217
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020781#14,441
VC St. Vincent & GrenadinesElectoral Office of St Vincent & the Grenadines — Final Voters List (Nov 2025)2025741#18
GY GuyanaGuyana — Official List of Electors July 20252025597#187
ES SpainINE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—412#9,303
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—412#9,286
EC EcuadorINEC — Visualizador de Nombres y Apellidos, per-token query API (1900–2024)—412—
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—146#10,827
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—135#5,712
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)2022131—

Reference works 6

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
  • jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 245 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Matthews?
We estimate roughly 1.9 million people bear Matthews (counting its spellings and scripts) across 10 countries in our records.
In which country does Matthews have the most bearers?
We estimate about 1.3 million people bear Matthews in the United States, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled matthew.
Where is Matthews most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Matthews is densest in Poland — about 1 in 101 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
How common is Matthews compared with other names?
In the United States, Matthews is the 40th most common given name of 3,122,706 given names recorded there.
What does the name Matthews mean?
Recorded meaning: patronymic from Matthew.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/matthews

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.

About this data

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Matthews” — the 40th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Matthews parses inside a full name →