Maddox is a mainly male name in use in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 speaking countries derived from a Welsh

Welsh language

Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...

 surname meaning "son of Madoc." Madoc

Madoc

Madoc or Madog ab Owain Gwynedd was, according to folklore, a Welsh prince who sailed to America in 1170, over three hundred years before Christopher Columbus's voyage in 1492. According to the story, he was a son of Owain Gwynedd who took to the sea to flee internecine violence at home...

 or Madog was a legendary Welsh prince

Prince

Prince is a general term for a ruler, monarch or member of a monarch's or former monarch's family, and is a hereditary title in the nobility of some European states. The feminine equivalent is a princess...

 who in Welsh folklore sailed to the New World

New World

The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...

 three hundred years before Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...

. The name means "fortunate" and is derived from the Welsh word

Welsh language

Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...

 "mad". The name has increased in popularity in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, where it was ranked at No. 180 for baby boys born in the United States in 2009, having jumped 402 places since 2003, when it was ranked at No. 533.

The name increased in popularity after the naming of Maddox Jolie-Pitt, the son of actors Brad Pitt

Brad Pitt

William Bradley "Brad" Pitt is an American actor and film producer. Pitt has received two Academy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one...

 and Angelina Jolie

Angelina Jolie

Angelina Jolie is an American actress. She has received an Academy Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards, and was named Hollywood's highest-paid actress by Forbes in 2009 and 2011. Jolie is noted for promoting humanitarian causes as a Goodwill Ambassador for the...

. Another well-known name holder is the Internet celebrity Maddox

Maddox (writer)

Maddox is the pen name of George Ouzounian, an American humorist, satirist, Internet personality, and author. He gained fame on the Internet in the early 2000s for his opinion-oriented website, The Best Page in the Universe, which he still maintains. His first book, The Alphabet of Manliness ,...

.