Brinson
An English name of Anglo-Saxon origin meaning "son of brown-haired man".
Name Census estimates that about 342 living Americans carry the first name Brinson. It is a predominantly male name (98.4% of registrations). The average person named Brinson today is around 26 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Brinson births was 2003 (15 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Brinson. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
People living today
342
~ 1 in 1,002,206 Americans
Peak year
2003
15 babies that year
Average age
26
years old
2024 SSA rank
#8,386
Tracked since 1919
Census
Brinson in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 397 people with the first name Brinson, which placed it at #24,319 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#24,319
National first-name rank
People counted
397
397 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
65.5% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Brinson
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Brinson is White at 65.5%. The next largest groups are Black (28.0%) and Two or More Races (2.8%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Brinson described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Brinson at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White65.5% · 260
- Black or African American28.0% · 111
- Two or more races2.8% · 11
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.5% · 6
- Hispanic or Latino1.3% · 5
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.0% · 4
Gender
Gender distribution for Brinson
Brinson leans heavily male at 98.4% of total registrations, but 6 girls have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Brinson as a male name
- Ranked #8,386 in 2024
- 9 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2003 (15 births)
Brinson as a female name
- Ranked #13,882 in 2002
- 6 female births in 2002
- Peak: 2002 (6 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Brinson leans strongly male. 351 people counted with this name were male (89.1%), compared with 43 female bearers (10.9%).
Popularity
Brinson: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Brinson from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 10 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 89 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2000s peak, Brinson remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Brinson by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Brinson during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Brinsons live
Origin
Meaning and history of Brinson
The given name Brinson is an English surname name that originated as a locational name from various places in England, including Brinscombe in Somerset, Brinsworth in Yorkshire, and others. It is derived from the Old English words "bryn" meaning "hill" or "ridge" and "scamb" meaning "small valley" or "hollow."
The earliest recorded use of the name Brinson dates back to the late 12th century, with one of the earliest known bearers being William de Brynscombe, who was mentioned in tax records from Somerset in 1199. Over the centuries, various spellings of the name emerged, including Brinscome, Brynscombe, and Brynson.
While not a particularly common given name, Brinson has been used throughout history, often as a way to honor family lineage or geographic roots. One notable bearer of the name was Sir Thomas Brinson (1558-1622), an English politician and landowner who served as a Member of Parliament for Somerset during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.
Another notable figure was Brinson Shearon (1812-1893), an American farmer and Confederate soldier from North Carolina who fought in the American Civil War. In more recent times, Brinson Massie (1890-1972) was an American architect and artist known for his contributions to the Arts and Crafts movement in Virginia.
Other individuals bearing the name Brinson include Brinson Whitfield (1848-1923), an American Baptist minister and educator from Georgia, and Brinson Lee (1897-1961), a professional baseball player from Alabama who played for the St. Louis Cardinals and the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1920s.
While not a widely popular name, Brinson has a rich history rooted in English etymology and has been carried by individuals from various walks of life throughout the centuries, from politicians and soldiers to athletes and artists.
People
Brinson + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Brinson as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with B
Other first names starting with B with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Brinson: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Brinson?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 342 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Brinson going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 1,002,206 US residents.
Is Brinson a common name?
We classify Brinson as "Very Rare". It ranks above 80.6% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 372 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Brinson most popular?
The single biggest year for Brinson was 2003, when 15 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Brinson is about 26 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Brinson in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 397 people with the name Brinson, or 0.13 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #24,319 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Brinson in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Brinson?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Brinson leans strongly male. 351 people counted with this name were male (89.1%), compared with 43 female bearers (10.9%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Brinson?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Brinson is White at 65.5%. The next largest groups are Black (28.0%) and Two or More Races (2.8%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Brinson most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Brinson in the 2020 Census, accounting for 65.5% (260 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Brinson in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Brinson a male name?
Yes, 98.4% of people registered as Brinson in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Brinson still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Brinson in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Brinson can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people have Brinson as a first name?
If you just want to know how many people have the name Brinson, HowManyOfMe.org gives you the headline number in one glance.