Maud (given name)

For other uses, see Maude (disambiguation).

Maud or Maude (approximately pronounced /mɔːd/ in English) derived from the Old French name Mahaut for Matilda. It originated in Old High German and consisted of the two words 'maht' (= power, powerful) and 'hiltja' (= battle). Its meaning is thus "powerful battler" or "powerful in battle".

It is a variant of the given name Matilda, but is uncommon as a surname. The Welsh variant of this name is Mawd.

The name's popularity in 19th-century England is associated with Alfred Tennyson's poem Maud.

People with the name include

Royalty and nobility

• Maud, Countess of Huntingdon (c. 1074–1130), Queen of Alba as the wife of King David I of Scotland
• Maud, 2nd Countess of Huntingdon (1074–1130), daughter of Waltheof, Earl of Northumbria and heir to his earldom of Huntingdon
• Empress Matilda, (1102–1169), also known as "Mahaut", "Maud" or "Maude", daughter of King Henry I of England and mother to King Henry II of England
• Maud Angelica Behn (born 2003), member of the Norwegian royal family
• Maud Carnegie, Countess of Southesk (1893–1945), née Lady Maud Duff, titled Princess Maud from 1905 to 1923, a member of the British Royal Family
• Maud de Badlesmere (1310–1366), English noblewoman and Countess of Oxford
• Maud de Clare (1276–1327), Baroness de Clifford and Baroness de Welles by marriage
• Maud de Lacy (1230–1304), Baroness Geneville
• Maud de Lacy (1223–1289), Countess of Gloucester
• Maud de Prendergast (c. 1242 – 1273), Norman-Irish noblewoman and Lady of Offaly
• Maud Francis (c. 1370 – 1424), English noblewoman and Countess of Salisbury
• Maud Green, Lady Parr (c. 1490/92 – 1531), English noblewoman and the mother of Katherine Parr, the sixth and final wife of King Henry VIII
• Maud Herbert, the eldest daughter of William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke, who intended to marry her to Henry, Earl of Richmond, the later Henry VII
• Maud le Vavasour (1176–1225), Irish noblewoman and Baroness Butler
• Maud of Apulia (c. 1060 – 1112), Countess of Barcelona
• Matilda of Flanders, (c. 1031 – 1083), also known as "Maud", Queen of England and Duchess of Normandy by marriage to William the Conqueror
• Maud of Gloucester (died 1189), Countess of Chester
• Maud of Lancaster (c. 1310 – 1377), Countess of Ulster
• Maud of Normandy (died 1006)
• Maud of Savoy (1125–1158), first Queen Consort of Portugal
• Maud of Wales (1869–1938), also known as Maud, Queen of Norway, a member of the British Royal Family
• Maud Palmer, Countess of Selborne (1858–1950), wife of William Palmer, 2nd Earl of Selborne and suffragist
• Maud Parr, Lady Lane (c. 1507 – 1558), English courtier and gentlewoman to Queen Katherine Parr, her cousin
• Maud Petty-Fitzmaurice, Marchioness of Lansdowne (1850–1932), British aristocrat and Vicereine of India

Arts

• Maud Adams (born 1945), Swedish actress
• Maud Aiken (1898–1978), Irish musician and director of the Municipal School of Music in Dublin
• Maud Allan (1873–1956), Canadian dancer and choreographer
• Maude Apatow (born 1997), American actress
• Maud Tindal Atkinson (1875–1954), British painter
• Maud Bodkin (1875–1967), English classical scholar
• Maud Boyd (1867–1929), British actress and singer
• Maud Cressall (1886–1962), British stage and silent film actress
• Maud Diver (1867– 1945), English author in British India who wrote novels, short stories, biographies and journalistic pieces on Indian topics and about the English in India
• Maud Durbin (1871–1936), American actress and writer
• Maud Howe Elliott (1854–1948), American novelist and Pulitzer Prize winner
• Maude Fealy (1883–1971), American stage and silent film actress
• Maud Forget (born 1982), French actress
• Maud Franklin (1857–1939), British painter and mistress of and model for artist James McNeill Whistler
• Maud Frère (1923–1979), Belgian novelist
• Maud Gatewood (1934–2004), American painter
• Maud Hansson (1937–2020), Swedish actress
• Maud Cuney Hare (1874–1936), American pianist and musicologist
• Maud Hawinkels (born 1976), Dutch television presenter
• Maud Hobson (1860 –1913), Australian-born English actress and burlesque performer
• Maud Humphrey (1868–1940), American commercial illustrator and watercolorist
• Maud Hyttenberg (1920–2009), Swedish actress
• Maud Jeffries (1869–1946), American actress and popular subject of theatrical post-cards and photographs
• Maud Lewis (1903–1970), Canadian folk artist
• Maud Karpeles (1885–1976), British collector of folksongs and dance teacher
• Maud Hart Lovelace (1892–1980), American writer
• Alice Maud Krige (born 1954), South African actress and producer
• Maud MacCarthy (Swami Omananda Puri; 1882–1967), Irish violinist, singer, writer, poet, esoteric teacher and authority on Indian music
• Maud Madison (1870–1953), American actress and dancer
• Maud Mary Brindley (1866–1939), English artist and suffragette
• Maud Meyer, Sierra Leonean Nigerian jazz singer
• Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874–1942), Canadian writer
• Maud Molyneux (1948 –2008), French transgender actress, journalist, costume designer and activist
• Maud Morgan (1860–1941), American harpist
• Maud Morgan (1903–1999), American modern and abstract expressionist artist and art teacher
• Maud Mulder (born 1981), Dutch singer who placed second in TV series Idols Netherlands
• Maud Naftel (1856–1891), English watercolour painter
• Maud Powell (1867–1920), American violinist
• Maud Julia Augusta Russell (1891–1982), British socialite and art patron
• Maud Hunt Squire (1873–1954), American painter and printmaker
• Maud Sulter (1960–2008), Scottish fine artist and photographer
• Maud Wagner (1877–1961), American circus performer and tattoo artist
• Maud Welzen (born 1993), Dutch model
• Maud Wyler (born 1982), French actress

Politics and activism

• Maud Ball, British politician
• Maud Bregeon (born 1991), French politician
• Maud Adeline Cloudesley Brereton (1872–1946), British feminist and sanitary reformer
• Maud Burnett (1863–1950), British politician who served as the first female mayor of Tynemouth
• Maud Gatel, French politician of the Democratic Movement
• Maud Gonne (1866–1953), English-born Irish revolutionary, feminist, actress and long-time poetic inspiration to William Butler Yeats
• Maud Olivier (born 1953), French politician
• Maud Olofsson (born 1955), Swedish politician and former leader of the Swedish Centre Party
• Maud Ingersoll Probasco (1864– 1936), American suffragist and animal rights activist
• Maud Thompson (1870–1962), American suffragist, women's rights activist and teacher
• Maud von Ossietzky (1888–1974), Anglo-Indian suffragette and political activist in Germany
• Maud Wood Park (1871–1955), American suffragist and women's rights activist

Sport

• Maud Banks (1879–1967), English-born American tennis player
• Maud Berglund (1934–2000), Swedish freestyle swimmer
• Maud Coutereels (born 1986), Belgian football midfielder
• Maud Fontenoy (born 1977), French sailor known for rowing across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans
• Maud Galtier (1913–2014), French tennis player
• Maud Herbert (born 1974), French windsurfer
• Maud Le Car (born 1992), Saint Martin-born French professional surfer and model
• Maud Megens (born 1996), Dutch water polo player
• Maud Medenou (born 1990), French basketball player
• Maud Muir (born 2001), English rugby union player
• Maud Roetgering (born 1992), Dutch footballer defender
• Maud Rosenbaum (1902–1981), Italian-American track-and-field athlete and tennis player
• Maud Titterton (1867–1932), British golfer
• Maud van der Meer (born 1992), Dutch competitive swimmer

Other

• Maud Chadburn (1868–1957), British surgeon
• Maud Cunard (1872–1948), American society hostess
• Maud Cunnington (1869–1951), Welsh archaeologist
• Maud de Boer-Buquicchio (born 1944), Dutch jurist
• Maud Darwin (1861–1947), American socialite
• Maud Frizon (born 1941), French shoe designer
• Maud Galt (c. 1620 – c. 1670), Scottish woman accused of witchcraft
• Maud McCarthy (1859–1949), nursing sister and British Army matron-in-chief
• Maud Menten (1879–1960), Canadian physician-scientist who made significant contributions to enzyme kinetics and histochemistry
• Maud Oakes (1903–1990), American ethnologist and writer who published research about the cultures of indigenous tribes in the Americas
• Maud Sellers (1861–1939), British historian and museum curator
• Maud Slye (1879 –1954), American pathologist
• Maud West (1880–13 March 1964), British detective
• Maud Wilde (1880–1965), American physician, organizational founder, and author

Fictional

• Maud, supporting protagonist of the webcomic Acception
• Maud, secondary character in the 2011 French animated film A Monster in Paris, voiced by Ludivine Sagnier
• Maud, revenge seeking mule in the comic strip And Her Name Was Maud, which first appeared in Hearst newspapers in 1904 and was written by Frederick Burr Opper; and in the 1916 animated film adaption
• Maud, werecat in the fantasy book series The Inheritance Cycle, written by Christopher Paolini
• Maud Bailey, main character in the 1990 Booker Prize for Fiction winning novel Possession, written by A. S. Byatt; and in the 2002 film adaption, where she is played by Gwyneth Paltrow; and in BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour serialised radio play adaption, where she is voiced by Jemma Redgrave
• Maud Bagshaw, Dowager Baroness Bagshaw, character in the British period drama Downton Abbey, played by Imelda Staunton
• Maud Beaton, character in the second series of HBO drama The Gilded Age, played by Nicole Brydon Bloom
• Maud Brewster, the romantic interest of protagonist Humphrey Van Weyden in the 1904 adventure novel The Sea-Wolf, written by Jack London; also in the numerous film adaptions of the book
• Maud Martha Brown, titular character in the 1953 novel Maud Martha, written by Pulitzer Prize winning African American poet Gwendolyn Brooks
• Maud Grimes, wheelchair-using pensioner in the British soap Coronation Street, played by Elizabeth Bradley
• Maud Gunneson, character in the TV series Penny Dreadful, played by Hannah Tointon
• Maud Horsham, widowed grandmother living with Alzheimer's disease who investigates a double mystery in the 2019 BBC drama series Elizabeth Is Missing, played by Glenda Jackson (present) and Liv Hill (younger)
• Maud Lilly, one of the central characters in the 2002 historical crime novel Fingersmith, written by Welsh novelist Sarah Waters; and in the 2005 BBC TV adaptation Fingersmith, where she was played by Elaine Cassidy
• Maud MacMuckle, also known as Ever Madder Aunt Maud, one of the principal characters in the Eddie Dickens trilogy of children's books, written by Philip Ardagh
• Maud Muller, titular subject of the 1856 poem, written by American Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier
• Maud O'Hara, character in the 2024 Disney+ series Rivals, played by Victoria Smurfit
• Maud Pie, older sister of Pinkie Pie from the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode of the same name, voiced by Ingrid Nilson
• Maud Silver, a retired governess-turned-private detective featured in 32 novels written by Patricia Wentworth
• Maud Smith, character in the 1913 American silent short comedy film Almost a Rescue, played by Billie Bennett
• Maud Spellbody, Mildred's best friend in The Worst Witch children's book series, written by Jill Murphy
• Maud Watts, working class suffragette and central character in the 2015 film Suffragette (film), played by Carey Mulligan
• Katie/Maud, central character in the 2019 British psychological horror film Saint Maud, played by Morfydd Clark

See also

• Matilda (disambiguation)
• Maude (disambiguation)
• Maudie (disambiguation)
• Princess Maud (disambiguation)
• Queen Maud (disambiguation)