Matei
Matei was given to 13 boys in 2025, #6,677 among boys’ names; 281 Americans have been recorded with it since 1996 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Matei by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
What does Matei mean?
Wiktionary, Romanian section
Matei is “a male given name”
Borrowed from Old Church Slavonic Матѳеи (Matθei), from Ancient Greek Ματθαῖος (Matthaîos).
Meaning: Wiktionary, Romanian section, as of Sep 25, 2026 (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
How popular is Matei?
#6,677 among boys’ names, 2025
Matei rose from #7,371 in 2015 to #6,677 in 2025 among boys’ names; its share of boys born rose from 5.7 to 7.6 per million.
19 babies in 2019, the peak
Matei peaked in 2019, when 19 boys were given it, #5,082 among boys’ names. The 13 births of 2025 are 68% of that peak.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 13 | #6,677 | 7.6 |
| 2024 | 18 | #5,364 | 10.4 |
| 2023 | 6 | #11,747 | 3.5 |
| 2022 | 12 | #7,087 | 6.9 |
| 2021 | 9 | #8,592 | 5.1 |
| 2020 | 15 | #5,873 | 8.7 |
| 2019 | 19 | #5,082 | 10.6 |
| 2018 | 10 | #7,954 | 5.5 |
| 2017 | 10 | #7,932 | 5.4 |
| 2016 | 17 | #5,458 | 9.0 |
Every recorded year (27)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 11 | #7,371 | 5.7 |
| 2014 | 16 | #5,626 | 8.3 |
| 2013 | 11 | #7,364 | 5.8 |
| 2012 | 8 | #9,397 | 4.2 |
| 2011 | 9 | #8,525 | 4.7 |
| 2010 | 9 | #8,550 | 4.7 |
| 2009 | 13 | #6,678 | 6.6 |
| 2008 | 13 | #6,634 | 6.4 |
| 2007 | 8 | #9,441 | 3.9 |
| 2006 | 6 | #11,555 | 2.9 |
| 2005 | 12 | #6,478 | 6.0 |
| 2004 | 7 | #9,584 | 3.5 |
| 2003 | 7 | #9,280 | 3.5 |
| 2002 | 6 | #10,206 | 3.1 |
| 2001 | 5 | #11,694 | 2.6 |
| 2000 | 5 | #11,533 | 2.5 |
| 1996 | 6 | #8,611 | 3.2 |
Ranks and shares: boys’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all boys SSA recorded that year.
Is Matei a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Matei has been recorded only for boys: SSA lists no girls with the name in 27 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Matei: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Matei, and how old are they?
An estimated 278 Americans named Matei and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (99% of everyone recorded); the median is 12 years old and half are between 6 and 18. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 328 people named Matei (10 women and girls, 318 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 210 born in the U.S. The Census count is 1.6 times that prediction. Possible reasons: the Census counts people born abroad, whom SSA’s files leave out, and it records the name people give, which SSA may have recorded under another spelling or as part of a compound name.
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 161,849 babies since 1880, Matei is the fifth most given (<1% of them). In 2025 it was given to 13 of their 13,591 babies (<1%), again the fifth most given.
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.
Names that rose and fell in the same decades as Matei
Names whose births rose and fell across the same decades, measured on each decade’s share of births.
Similar histories: each decade’s share of births, from the SSA national file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
More about Matei and names like it
- Compare Matei and MateoBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 2010sMatei peaked in 2019.
- The top names of 2019The year the most babies were named Matei.
- The names of Generation AlphaMost people named Matei alive today were born 2013-2025.
- Names starting with MMost given first.