Kayton
An English name derived from the English surname "Keaton," meaning "person from Keaton."
Name Census estimates that about 336 living Americans carry the first name Kayton. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 50.9% of registrations being male. The average person named Kayton today is around 15 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Kayton births was 2008 (22 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Kayton. 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 Kayton with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
336
~ 1 in 1,020,102 Americans
Peak year
2008
22 babies that year
Average age
15
years old
2024 SSA rank
#10,368
Tracked since 1992
Census
Kayton in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 368 people with the first name Kayton, which placed it at #25,680 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
#25,680
National first-name rank
People counted
368
368 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
59.2% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Kayton
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Kayton is White at 59.2%. The next largest groups are Black (16.6%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (8.7%). 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 Kayton 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 Kayton at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White59.2% · 218
- Black or African American16.6% · 61
- Asian and Pacific Islander8.7% · 32
- Two or more races8.2% · 30
- Hispanic or Latino5.4% · 20
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.9% · 7
Gender
Gender distribution for Kayton
Kayton is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 340 total registrations, 173 (50.9%) were male and 167 (49.1%) were female.
Kayton as a male name
- Ranked #10,368 in 2024
- 7 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2016 (13 births)
Kayton as a female name
- Ranked #16,451 in 2021
- 5 female births in 2021
- Peak: 2003 (13 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Kayton on both sides of the split. Of the 368 people counted with this name, 181 were male (49.2%) and 187 were female (50.8%).
Popularity
Kayton: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Kayton from the 1990s through to the 2020s, spanning 4 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 154 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 2010s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Kayton 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 Kayton during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Kaytons live
Origin
Meaning and history of Kayton
The name Kayton is a modern English variant of the ancient Greek name Κάδμος (Kadmos), which was the name of the legendary founder of the city of Thebes and the bringer of the Phoenician alphabet to the Greek world. The name Kadmos is believed to be derived from the Semitic root "qdm," meaning "ancient" or "primeval."
Kadmos, according to Greek mythology, was a Phoenician prince who arrived in Boeotia after being exiled from his homeland. He slew a dragon that guarded the Ismenian spring near Thebes and sowed its teeth into the ground, causing a crop of fierce warriors to spring up. With the aid of Athena, Kadmos defeated these warriors and founded the city of Thebes.
The earliest recorded example of the name Kadmos appears in Homer's Odyssey, where the hero Odysseus encounters the shade of Kadmos in the Underworld. In the 5th century BCE, the Greek historian Herodotus wrote about Kadmos and his role in introducing the Phoenician alphabet to the Greeks.
Throughout history, there have been several notable individuals bearing the name Kayton or its variants. One of the earliest was Cadmus of Miletus (c. 550 BCE), a Greek historian and logographer who is credited with being one of the first prose writers in the Western tradition.
Another prominent figure was Cadmus Delvinianus (c. 5th century CE), a Latin grammarian and Christian scholar who wrote a treatise on the Pentateuch and other works on biblical interpretation.
In the Middle Ages, there was Cadmus of Leeuwarden (c. 1180-1235), a Frisian poet and author of the Middle Dutch work "Liede van Cadmus."
During the Renaissance, Cadmus Gascoigne (1525-1580) was an English politician and member of Parliament who played a role in establishing the Royal Exchange in London.
In more recent times, Cadmus Wilcox (1824-1890) was a Confederate general during the American Civil War, known for his leadership at the Battle of Chickamauga.
While the name Kayton is not as common as its ancient Greek counterpart, it has been used throughout history by individuals from various backgrounds and cultures, carrying on the legacy of the mythical founder of Thebes and the bringer of the alphabet.
People
Kayton + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Kayton as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with K
Other first names starting with K with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Kayton: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Kayton?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 336 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Kayton 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 1,020,102 US residents.
Is Kayton a common name?
We classify Kayton as "Very Rare". It ranks above 80.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 340 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Kayton most popular?
The single biggest year for Kayton was 2008, when 22 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Kayton is about 15 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Kayton in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 368 people with the name Kayton, or 0.12 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #25,680 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 Kayton 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 Kayton?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Kayton on both sides of the split. Of the 368 people counted with this name, 181 were male (49.2%) and 187 were female (50.8%). 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 Kayton?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Kayton is White at 59.2%. The next largest groups are Black (16.6%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (8.7%). 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 Kayton most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Kayton in the 2020 Census, accounting for 59.2% (218 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 Kayton in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Kayton a male name?
Yes, 50.9% of people registered as Kayton 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 Kayton still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Kayton 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 Kayton 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 Americans are named Kayton?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.