Horton
Noble or respected friend, from the Old English elements "hore" and "tun".
Name Census estimates that about 114 living Americans carry the first name Horton. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Horton today is around 77 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Horton births was 1922 (28 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Horton. 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.
Key insights
- • The typical person named Horton is about 77 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Hortons were born before 1959.
People living today
114
~ 1 in 3,006,617 Americans
Peak year
1922
28 babies that year
Average age
77
years old
2012 SSA rank
#12,955
Tracked since 1888
Census
Horton in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 226 people with the first name Horton, which placed it at #35,529 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
#35,529
National first-name rank
People counted
226
226 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 Horton
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Horton is White at 65.5%. The next largest groups are Black (25.7%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (5.3%). 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 Horton 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 Horton at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White65.5% · 148
- Black or African American25.7% · 58
- Asian and Pacific Islander5.3% · 12
- Hispanic or Latino2.2% · 5
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.3% · 3
Popularity
Horton: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Horton from the 1880s through to the 2010s, spanning 11 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 209 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1920s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Horton 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 Horton during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Hortons live
Origin
Meaning and history of Horton
The given name Horton has its origins in the Old English language, with roots dating back to the Anglo-Saxon period in Britain. It is believed to be derived from the Old English words "horu" meaning dirt or mud, and "tun" meaning a town or settlement. Together, the name Horton may have originally referred to someone living in a muddy or dirty town.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Horton can be found in the Domesday Book, a remarkable survey of land and landholdings commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1086. The Domesday Book mentions a landowner named Horton, though few details about this individual are known.
In the 12th century, a monk named Horton is mentioned in the chronicles of Jocelin of Brakelond, a Benedictine monastery in Suffolk, England. This Horton is described as a skilled illuminator of manuscripts, suggesting that the name was in use among educated and artistic circles of the time.
During the Middle Ages, the name Horton gained popularity among the English gentry and nobility. One notable figure was Sir Horton Beckering, a 14th-century knight who fought alongside Edward III in the Hundred Years' War against France. Sir Horton is recorded as having distinguished himself in the Battle of Crécy in 1346.
In the 16th century, an English explorer named Horton Griffith is believed to have been one of the first Europeans to set foot in the area now known as Virginia, in what would become the United States. Griffith's voyage and explorations are documented in historical records from the late 1500s.
Another famous bearer of the name Horton was the 17th-century English mathematician and astronomer Horton Franklind, who made significant contributions to the study of celestial mechanics and the motion of planets. Franklind's work influenced the development of modern astronomy and our understanding of the solar system.
People
Horton + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Horton as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with H
Other first names starting with H with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Horton: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Horton?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 114 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Horton 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 3,006,617 US residents.
Is Horton a common name?
We classify Horton as "Very Rare". It ranks above 66.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 616 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Horton most popular?
The single biggest year for Horton was 1922, when 28 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Horton is about 77 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Horton in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 226 people with the name Horton, or 0.07 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #35,529 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 Horton 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 Horton?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Horton leans strongly male. 207 people counted with this name were male (91.2%), compared with 20 female bearers (8.8%). 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 Horton?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Horton is White at 65.5%. The next largest groups are Black (25.7%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (5.3%). 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 Horton most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Horton in the 2020 Census, accounting for 65.5% (148 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 Horton in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Horton a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Horton 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 Horton still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Horton 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 Horton 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 share the name Horton?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.