Matthew
Countries
Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, Great Britain, Ireland, Malta, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Philippines, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, U.S.A., United Kingdom
Appears in sources: SSA, FNDB, GND.UK, PNC, INSEE, OnCA, NZ, IE, SCOT, NI, BR, ES, SE, FI
β¨ Numerology alignment
β9 The Humanitarian β Compassionate, idealistic, global.
Why parents pick it: For a broad-minded, deeply empathetic child.
Pythagorean 9 Β· Chaldean 2. Calculated by mapping each letter to a number and reducing to a single digit (master numbers 11/22/33 kept).
Set a birth date in the bar above to see how this name harmonizes with the child's Life Path.
Numerology is a traditional belief system, shown for cultural interest β not a prediction.
π± Five-Element reading
Water Water name β Wisdom, adaptability, communication, and intuition.
Read from the first sound of βMatthewβ using the sound-to-element mapping (Korean Seonmyeonghak / Chinese δΊι³) β the actual spoken name, no character conversion.
Set a birth date in the bar above to compare with the birth-year element.
A traditional Five-Element interpretation, shown for cultural interest β not a prediction.
Meaning & etymology
Hebrew β Gift of God (Mattityahu)
Pronunciation
Press to hear it read aloud.
Nicknames
Short forms: Matt, Mattie, Matty, Thias, Thys
Good names, good people: Matthew
Real people β historic and present-day β who share this name, with good news only.
Matthew Henson (1866-1955)
Matthew Henson was part of the expedition credited with reaching the North Pole in 1909, and from what I understand, his navigational and survival skills were essential to the whole team actually making it there and back, not just a supporting role in somebody else's story. I've spent 22 years covering ground across this country, and I've got real respect for the people who actually know the terrain, who do the unglamorous work of keeping an expedition alive mile by mile, even when the history books eventually put somebody else's name on the achievement first. Henson, as an African American explorer in that era, didn't get anywhere close to the recognition he'd earned for a long time after the fact, and it's taken history a while to properly credit what he actually contributed. I think about that whenever people talk about who 'gets credit' for a long haul versus who actually drove it. Henson drove a huge stretch of that journey. Good that people are finally saying so.
Matthew McConaughey (b. 1969)
Matthew McConaughey founded the just keep livin foundation to help high school students build healthy, active lifestyles and make positive life choices, which, as someone newly and exhaustingly deep in early parenthood myself, I find genuinely appealing β the idea of just plainly, unpretentiously helping teenagers build good daily habits before their lives get complicated. There's something almost visually simple about that mission, no elaborate branding needed, just the basic building blocks of a decent life laid out clearly for kids who might not have anyone else modeling it for them. I don't know McConaughey's films that well beyond the big ones, but I've noticed how consistent his public messaging has stayed around this cause over the years, which in celebrity philanthropy terms is actually kind of rare β a lot of causes get a big splashy launch and then quietly fade. His foundation's kept going. As a new parent myself, I appreciate anyone still doing the steady, unglamorous work of helping kids build good foundations.
Matthew Perry (1969-2023)
Matthew Perry was beloved for 'Friends,' a show I never much watched myself, being more of a Westerns and old movies guy, but what actually made me want to write about him is what he did in his later years: he became an outspoken advocate for addiction recovery, opening a sober-living home for men and sharing his own story honestly to help others get treatment. I've known good men, guys I worked alongside for decades, who fought that same fight and didn't always win it, and I have real respect for anybody willing to be public and honest about a struggle like that instead of hiding it behind a comfortable image. It would've been easier for Perry to just let the sitcom fame carry his whole legacy. Instead he used his standing to try to actually help other people going through what he went through. That kind of honesty, especially from someone famous, takes more guts than most performances ever do.