Matie

History & Origin

Matie belongs to the nineteenth-century fashion for turning cosy pet forms into legal first names, alongside Mamie, Hattie and Lottie. It usually stood for Martha, from Aramaic for 'lady', or Mary. Written in family Bibles and census rolls as a name in its own right, Matie carried the informal warmth of the nickname into the christening register.

Matie was never common, drawing only a couple dozen girls a year even at its high in the eighteen-eighties before fading through the twentieth century. A girl named Matie then belonged to a great-great-grandmother's generation now. It reads as a tender antique nickname-name, part of the wider revival of homespun vintage names though not yet widely back itself.