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Matei

From Hebrew, carrying the sense "gift of god." Most Poles have never met a Matei, but the name stopped being a stranger this decade: the register now logs a small run of newborn boys, all of them male, year after year.

Matei Pronunciation

Matei is pronounced mah-TE-ee (/maˈtɛi/).

Alive in 2025
166
Newborns 2025
6
National rank
#2499

What Matei means

Where Matei comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.

Matei begins in Hebrew. Behind it stands Mattityahu, a name that joins a word for gift to the name of God, and from that root comes the meaning people still give it: "gift of God." The long original narrowed over centuries into these two short syllables.

Matthew the Evangelist, author of the first Gospel, carried the same Hebrew root. That is why the name has traveled across Christian Europe for close to two thousand years. The short form Matei took hold mainly in the south and east of the continent, and it remains common in Romania today.

Read a name-day list at a Polish urząd and you can see how a name thins to its clearest sound. Matei is one such form. It keeps the promise of the Hebrew and lets the rest fall away.

A child answering to it holds an old idea in a small word. The meaning has not shifted since Mattityahu: a gift of God.

How many people are named Matei

1 in 128591 men in Poland is named Matei. 166 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #2499 among male names.

People with the name Matei 2019 → 2025
166 +147 since 2019
2020 24 +5
2021 37 +13
2022 50 +13
2023 115 +65
2024 142 +27
2025 166 +24

Matei's popularity over time

6 boys were given the name in 2025, ranking #875 among newborns. It has been climbing since 2020.

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6 newborns with the name Matei in 2025
national rank #875 that year

Where parents choose Matei

Matei is most popular in Lower Silesian, 358% above the national average (3 boys born 2019–2025), followed by Masovian (+171%) and Greater Poland (+123%).

Chosen most
  • Lower Silesian
    +358%
    1 in 52,378 babies
  • Masovian
    +171%
    1 in 88,566 babies
  • Greater Poland
    +123%
    1 in 107,622 babies

Matei as a middle name

Matei is a first name for 166 men in Poland and a middle name for another 12, a 93/7 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 2817th, between Martial (12) and Mickaël (12).

As a first name
166
As a middle name
12
first name 93% middle name 7%
Middle-name ranking men

Look up another name

Search the register, or step through the ranking one place at a time.

Next in ranking → Meri #2500