Colen
A variant spelling of Coline, a French masculine name meaning "young pig".
Name Census estimates that about 357 living Americans carry the first name Colen. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Colen today is around 54 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Colen births was 1943 (19 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Colen. 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
357
~ 1 in 960,096 Americans
Peak year
1943
19 babies that year
Average age
54
years old
2005 SSA rank
#7,213
Tracked since 1913
Census
Colen in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 435 people with the first name Colen, which placed it at #22,776 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
#22,776
National first-name rank
People counted
435
435 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
70.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Colen
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Colen is White at 70.3%. The next largest groups are Black (16.8%) and American Indian/Alaska Native (3.9%). 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 Colen 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 Colen at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White70.3% · 306
- Black or African American16.8% · 73
- American Indian and Alaska Native3.9% · 17
- Two or more races3.7% · 16
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.0% · 13
- Hispanic or Latino2.3% · 10
Popularity
Colen: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Colen from the 1910s through to the 2000s, spanning 10 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1940s, with 100 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 1940s peak, Colen remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Colen 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 Colen during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Colens live
Origin
Meaning and history of Colen
The name Colen is a variant spelling of the ancient Roman name Colin, which was derived from the Latin word "columna" meaning "pillar" or "column." The name originated during the Roman era and was initially used as a surname or family name.
Colen traces its roots back to the Roman province of Gaul, which encompassed modern-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and parts of Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands. As the Roman Empire expanded, the name spread across Europe and evolved into various spellings and pronunciations.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Colen can be found in the writings of the Roman historian Suetonius, who mentioned a certain Colen Publicius, a centurion in the Roman army during the 1st century AD. This suggests that the name was in use among Roman citizens and soldiers at that time.
In the Middle Ages, the name Colen gained popularity in Britain and Ireland, where it was often spelled as Colin or Collin. During this period, the name was associated with various historical figures, including Saint Colin of Drumlithie, a 7th-century Scottish hermit and missionary.
Another notable figure bearing the name Colen was Colen de Lambert, a 12th-century Norman nobleman who participated in the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 and later became a prominent landowner in Oxfordshire.
In the 16th century, the name Colen appeared in the works of the English playwright William Shakespeare. In his play "The Two Gentlemen of Verona," one of the characters is named Colin, a shepherd.
During the 17th century, the name Colen was associated with Colen Campbell, a Scottish soldier and adventurer who served in the Swedish army and later became a prominent figure in the Swedish colony of New Sweden, now part of Delaware and Pennsylvania.
In the 19th century, Colen Harding Hitchens was a British naval officer who served during the Napoleonic Wars and became a prominent figure in the Jamaican plantocracy. He was born in 1784 and died in 1857.
People
Colen + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Colen as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with C
Other first names starting with C with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Colen: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Colen?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 357 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Colen 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 960,096 US residents.
Is Colen a common name?
We classify Colen as "Very Rare". It ranks above 81.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 528 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Colen most popular?
The single biggest year for Colen was 1943, when 19 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Colen is about 54 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Colen in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 435 people with the name Colen, or 0.14 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #22,776 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 Colen 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 Colen?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Colen leans strongly male. 411 people counted with this name were male (94.9%), compared with 22 female bearers (5.1%). 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 Colen?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Colen is White at 70.3%. The next largest groups are Black (16.8%) and American Indian/Alaska Native (3.9%). 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 Colen most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Colen in the 2020 Census, accounting for 70.3% (306 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 Colen in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Colen a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Colen 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 Colen still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Colen 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 Colen 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 are named Colen?
Find out how many people share the name Colen on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — a quick modern estimate with the living-bearer count front and centre.