Maud (given name)
Maud or Maude derived from the Old French name Mahaut for Matilda. It originated in Old High German and consisted of the two words 'maht' and 'hiltja'. 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, Queen of Alba as the wife of King David I of Scotland
- Maud, 2nd Countess of Huntingdon, daughter of Waltheof, Earl of Northumbria and heir to his earldom of Huntingdon
- Empress Matilda,, 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, member of the Norwegian royal family
- Maud Carnegie, Countess of Southesk, née Lady Maud Duff, titled Princess Maud from 1905 to 1923, a member of the British Royal Family
- Maud de Badlesmere, English noblewoman and Countess of Oxford
- Maud de Clare, Baroness de Clifford and Baroness de Welles by marriage
- Maud de Lacy, Baroness Geneville
- Maud de Lacy, Countess of Gloucester
- Maud de Prendergast, Norman-Irish noblewoman and Lady of Offaly
- Maud Francis, English noblewoman and Countess of Salisbury
- Maud Green, Lady Parr, 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, Irish noblewoman and Baroness Butler
- Maud of Apulia, Countess of Barcelona
- Matilda of Flanders,, also known as "Maud", Queen of England and Duchess of Normandy by marriage to William the Conqueror
- Maud of Gloucester, Countess of Chester
- Maud of Lancaster, Countess of Ulster
- Maud of Normandy
- Maud of Savoy, first Queen Consort of Portugal
- Maud of Wales, also known as Maud, Queen of Norway, a member of the British Royal Family
- Maud Palmer, Countess of Selborne, wife of William Palmer, 2nd Earl of Selborne and suffragist
- Maud Parr, Lady Lane, English courtier and gentlewoman to Queen Katherine Parr, her cousin
- Maud Petty-Fitzmaurice, Marchioness of Lansdowne, British aristocrat and Vicereine of India
Arts
- Maud Adams, Swedish actress
- Maud Aiken, Irish musician and director of the Municipal School of Music in Dublin
- Maud Allan, Canadian dancer and choreographer
- Maude Apatow, American actress
- Maud Tindal Atkinson, British painter
- Maud Bodkin, English classical scholar
- Maud Boyd, British actress and singer
- Maud Cressall, British stage and silent film actress
- Maud Diver, 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, American actress and writer
- Maud Howe Elliott, American novelist and Pulitzer Prize winner
- Maude Fealy, American stage and silent film actress
- Maud Forget, French actress
- Maud Franklin, British painter and mistress of and model for artist James McNeill Whistler
- Maud Frère, Belgian novelist
- Maud Gatewood, American painter
- Maud Hansson, Swedish actress
- Maud Cuney Hare, American pianist and musicologist
- Maud Hawinkels, Dutch television presenter
- Maud Hobson, Australian-born English actress and burlesque performer
- Maud Humphrey, American commercial illustrator and watercolorist
- Maud Hyttenberg, Swedish actress
- Maud Jeffries, American actress and popular subject of theatrical post-cards and photographs
- Maud Lewis, Canadian folk artist
- Maud Karpeles, British collector of folksongs and dance teacher
- Maud Hart Lovelace, American writer
- Alice Maud Krige, South African actress and producer
- Maud MacCarthy, Irish violinist, singer, writer, poet, esoteric teacher and authority on Indian music
- Maud Madison, American actress and dancer
- Maud Meyer, Sierra Leonean Nigerian jazz singer
- Lucy Maud Montgomery, Canadian writer
- Maud Molyneux, French transgender actress, journalist, costume designer and activist
- Maud Morgan, American harpist
- Maud Morgan, American modern and abstract expressionist artist and art teacher
- Maud Mulder, Dutch singer who placed second in TV series Idols Netherlands
- Maud Naftel, English watercolour painter
- Maud Nelke, British socialite and art patron
- Maud Powell, American violinist
- Maud Hunt Squire, American painter and printmaker
- Maud Sulter, Scottish fine artist and photographer
- Maud Wagner, American circus performer and tattoo artist
- Maud Welzen, Dutch model
- Maud Wyler, French actress
Politics and activism
- Maud Bregeon, French politician
- Maud Adeline Cloudesley Brereton, British feminist and sanitary reformer
- Maud Burnett, British politician who served as the first female mayor of Tynemouth
- Maud Gatel, French politician of the Democratic Movement
- Maud Gonne, English-born Irish revolutionary, feminist, actress and long-time poetic inspiration to William Butler Yeats
- Maud Olivier, French politician
- Maud Olofsson, Swedish politician and former leader of the Swedish Centre Party
- Maud Ingersoll Probasco, American suffragist and animal rights activist
- Maud Thompson, American suffragist, women's rights activist and teacher
- Maud von Ossietzky, Anglo-Indian suffragette and political activist in Germany
- Maud Wood Park, American suffragist and women's rights activist
Sport
- Maud Banks, English-born American tennis player
- Maud Berglund, Swedish freestyle swimmer
- Maud Coutereels, Belgian football midfielder
- Maud Fontenoy, French sailor known for rowing across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans
- Maud Galtier, French tennis player
- Maud Herbert, French windsurfer
- Maud Le Car, Saint Martin-born French professional surfer and model
- Maud Megens, Dutch water polo player
- Maud Medenou, French basketball player
- Maud Muir, English rugby union player
- Maud Roetgering, Dutch footballer defender
- Maud Rosenbaum, Italian-American track-and-field athlete and tennis player
- Maud Titterton, British golfer
- Maud van der Meer, Dutch competitive swimmer
Other
- Maud Chadburn, British surgeon
- Maud Cunard, American society hostess
- Maud Cunnington, Welsh archaeologist
- Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, Dutch jurist
- Maud Darwin, American socialite
- Maud Frizon, French shoe designer
- Maud Galt, Scottish woman accused of witchcraft
- Maud McCarthy, nursing sister and British Army matron-in-chief
- Maud Menten, Canadian physician-scientist who made significant contributions to enzyme kinetics and histochemistry
- Maud Oakes, American ethnologist and writer who published research about the cultures of indigenous tribes in the Americas
- Maud Sellers, British historian and museum curator
- Maud Slye, American pathologist
- Maud West, British detective
- Maud Wilde, 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 and Liv Hill
- 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, fictional 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