Mata
Mata was last recorded in 1969, when 6 babies were given it; 137 Americans have been recorded with it between 1885 and 1969 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Mata by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
What does Mata mean?
Wiktionary, Scottish Gaelic section
Mata is “a male given name from Biblical Hebrew, equivalent to English Matthew”
/ˈmaʰtə/
Meaning: Wiktionary, Scottish Gaelic section, as of Sep 25, 2026 (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
How popular is Mata?
Unranked in 2025
Its last girls’ rank on record is #7,145, in 1969; SSA lists a name only in years with 5 or more births.
10 babies in 1953, the peak
Mata peaked in 1953, when 10 girls were given it, #3,879 among girls’ names. It was not recorded in 2025.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1969 | 6 | #7,145 | 3.6 |
| 1960 | 5 | #6,987 | 2.5 |
| 1957 | 5 | #6,719 | 2.4 |
| 1954 | 8 | #4,528 | 4.1 |
| 1953 | 10 | #3,879 | 5.3 |
| 1952 | 5 | #6,118 | 2.7 |
| 1947 | 5 | #5,830 | 2.8 |
| 1942 | 6 | #4,463 | 4.4 |
| 1920 | 7 | #4,260 | 5.8 |
| 1916 | 6 | #4,227 | 5.7 |
Every recorded year (22)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1915 | 9 | #3,048 | 9.1 |
| 1913 | 6 | #3,064 | 9.6 |
| 1912 | 5 | #3,276 | 9.0 |
| 1906 | 5 | #2,129 | 16.9 |
| 1901 | 5 | #1,856 | 20.9 |
| 1898 | 7 | #1,460 | 27.1 |
| 1896 | 5 | #1,743 | 21.0 |
| 1894 | 7 | #1,309 | 31.4 |
| 1893 | 5 | #1,574 | 23.5 |
| 1892 | 8 | #1,144 | 37.7 |
| 1891 | 6 | #1,292 | 32.3 |
| 1885 | 6 | #1,004 | 45.1 |
Ranks and shares: girls’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all girls SSA recorded that year.
Is Mata a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Mata has been recorded only for girls: SSA lists no boys with the name in 22 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Mata: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Mata, and how old are they?
An estimated 38 Americans named Mata and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026, too few to state an age range. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 320 people named Mata (254 women and girls, 66 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 42 born in the U.S. The Census count is 7.6 times that prediction. Possible reasons: the Census records the name people give, which for many is the short form Mata rather than the name on their birth record, and it counts people born abroad, whom SSA’s files leave out.
Living estimate: SSA births carried forward with the survival rates in SSA’s cohort life tables (2024 Trustees Report) for each birth year and sex. How the estimate is made. Count: Census Bureau, first names in the 2020 Census (released April 14, 2026; names reported 100 or more times, with the Bureau’s disclosure-avoidance adjustment).
Names spelled alike
Of these 8 names spelled alike, given to 13,657 babies since 1880, Mata is the eighth most given (1.0% of them). In 2025 none of their 348 babies recorded by SSA was a Mata (SSA lists a name only with 5 or more babies of one sex).
Spelled alike: names in the SSA national file with the same pattern of letters and sounds and at most two letters apart, and Wiktionary’s listed forms; births since 1880 and in 2025, and each name’s peak year, from the SSA national file, published May 8, 2026. Some are separate names, not spellings of one.
More about Mata and names like it
- Compare Mata and MaiteBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 1950sMata peaked in 1953.
- The top names of 1953The year the most babies were named Mata.
- Names starting with MMost given first.