Britney
From the Old English name "Briton", meaning a member of the ancient Celtic people of Britain.
Name Census estimates that about 34,355 living Americans carry the first name Britney. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Britney today is around 30 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Britney births was 1989 (2,518 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Britney. 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.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Britney with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Britney is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 83 boys registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
34K
~ 1 in 9,977 Americans
Peak year
1989
2,518 babies that year
Average age
30
years old
2001 SSA rank
#1,333
Tracked since 1968
Census
Britney in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 31,345 people with the first name Britney, which placed it at #1,223 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
#1,223
National first-name rank
People counted
31K
31,345 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
10.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
52.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Britney
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Britney is White at 52.3%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (20.0%) and Black (18.8%). 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 Britney 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 Britney at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White52.3% · 16,391
- Hispanic or Latino20.0% · 6,270
- Black or African American18.8% · 5,905
- Asian and Pacific Islander4.3% · 1,354
- Two or more races3.8% · 1,199
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.7% · 226
Gender
Gender distribution for Britney
Out of the 35,532 babies given the name Britney since 1880, 99.8% were registered as female. The name sits firmly on the female side of the spectrum, with only a handful of male registrations across the entire dataset.
Britney as a male name
- Ranked #10,784 in 2001
- 5 male births in 2001
- Peak: 1989 (24 births)
Britney as a female name
- Ranked #1,333 in 2024
- 171 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1989 (2,494 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Britney appears almost entirely female. Of the 31,343 people counted with this name, 99.7% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Britney: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Britney from the 1960s through to the 2020s, spanning 7 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 12,073 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1990s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Britney 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 Britney during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Britneys live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, Texas, Florida recorded the most babies named Britney, while Alaska, Vermont, North Dakota recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 658 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Britney
The given name Britney is an English name derived from the Celtic words "bry" meaning hill, and "tan" meaning small or little. The earliest recorded instances of the name date back to the 10th century in Britain.
In ancient texts, the name appears as "Brihtny" in the Domesday Book of 1086, a record of landowners commissioned by William the Conqueror. The Domesday Book lists a landowner named Brihtny in the county of Yorkshire.
The name Britney grew in popularity during the Middle Ages, particularly among the nobility and upper classes in England. Britney de Vere, born in 1212, was a notable figure from this era, serving as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Eleanor of Provence.
During the Renaissance period, the name Britney appeared in various literary works. William Shakespeare's play "Henry VI, Part 2" features a character named Britney, believed to be based on a real person from the 15th century.
In the 17th century, Britney Cartwright (1635-1702) was a renowned English botanist and one of the first women to be elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1697.
The name Britney also has ties to the American colonies. Britney Winthrop (1678-1732) was a notable figure in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, known for her work in promoting education and establishing one of the first schools for girls in the colonies.
In more recent history, Britney Cooper (1892-1986) was an influential American civil rights activist and one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Britney
People
Britney + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Britney 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
Britney: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Britney?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 34,355 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Britney 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 9,977 US residents.
Is Britney a common name?
We classify Britney as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 35,532 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Britney most popular?
The single biggest year for Britney was 1989, when 2,518 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Britney is about 30 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Britney in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 31,345 people with the name Britney, or 10.38 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,223 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 Britney 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 Britney?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Britney appears almost entirely female. Of the 31,343 people counted with this name, 99.7% were female and only a very small share were male. 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 Britney?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Britney is White at 52.3%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (20.0%) and Black (18.8%). 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 Britney most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Britney in the 2020 Census, accounting for 52.3% (16,391 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 Britney in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Britney a female name?
Yes, 99.8% of people registered as Britney in the SSA data are female. 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 Britney still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Britney 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 Britney 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 the name Britney?
See how many Americans are named Britney on HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site built around that single question.