Leighton
A masculine name of English origin, meaning "from the town meadow".
Name Census estimates that about 19,165 living Americans carry the first name Leighton. It sits at #395 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 55.6% of registrations being female. The average person named Leighton today is around 16 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Leighton births was 2022 (1,144 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Leighton. 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 Leighton with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Leighton started out as a boys' name but over the decades crossed over and is now given to girls far more often.
- • Leighton sits in rare territory as a truly gender-neutral name, given to boys and girls in near-equal numbers.
- • Leighton is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 16 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
19K
~ 1 in 17,884 Americans
Peak year
2022
1,144 babies that year
Average age
16
years old
2024 SSA rank
#395
Tracked since 1893
Census
Leighton in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 13,416 people with the first name Leighton, which placed it at #2,032 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
#2,032
National first-name rank
People counted
13K
13,416 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
4.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
75.4% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Leighton
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Leighton is White at 75.4%. The next largest groups are Black (8.8%) and Two or More Races (5.9%). 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 Leighton 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 Leighton at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White75.4% · 10,118
- Black or African American8.8% · 1,183
- Two or more races5.9% · 790
- Hispanic or Latino5.7% · 765
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.9% · 386
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.3% · 174
Gender
Gender distribution for Leighton
Leighton is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 20,720 total registrations, 9,201 (44.4%) were male and 11,519 (55.6%) were female.
Leighton as a male name
- Ranked #1,039 in 2024
- 213 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2019 (366 births)
Leighton as a female name
- Ranked #395 in 2024
- 797 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2023 (853 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Leighton on both sides of the split. Of the 13,417 people counted with this name, 6,455 were male (48.1%) and 6,962 were female (51.9%).
Popularity
Leighton: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Leighton from the 1890s through to the 2020s, spanning 14 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 8,648 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Leighton remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Leighton 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 Leighton during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Leightons live
The SSA's state-level files cover 45 states and territories. Texas, California, Florida recorded the most babies named Leighton, while New Mexico, New Hampshire, Nevada recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 333 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Leighton
The given name Leighton is an English name with origins dating back to the medieval era. It is derived from the Old English words "leah" meaning a meadow or woodland clearing, and "tun" meaning an enclosure or settlement. The name essentially refers to a settlement or village located in a meadow or clearing.
Leighton first emerged as a surname in areas of England such as Shropshire, Cheshire, and Lancashire during the 11th and 12th centuries. It was initially used as a locational surname, identifying people who hailed from various places called Leighton. Over time, some bearers of the surname adopted it as a given name.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Leighton can be found in the Domesday Book of 1086, which mentions several locations with names like Leitone and Lestone. These places likely gave rise to the surname and subsequently the given name.
In the 13th century, Sir Leighton de Leighton was a notable figure who served as a knight and landowner in Cheshire. He was part of the English gentry during the reign of King Henry III.
During the Renaissance period, Leighton Blohum (c. 1550-1612) was an English composer and organist who contributed to the development of English church music.
In the 17th century, Leighton Woodmass (1617-1684) was an English clergyman and writer who served as a chaplain to King Charles II.
A more modern example is Leighton Rees (1909-2003), a Welsh art historian and writer who specialized in the study of Celtic art and archaeology.
Another notable bearer of the name was Leighton Buzzard (1873-1950), an English actor and comedian who performed in various music hall and vaudeville shows during the early 20th century.
While the name Leighton has English origins, it has also been adopted in other cultures and languages over time, though the historical details may vary.
People
Leighton + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Leighton as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with L
Other first names starting with L with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Leighton: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Leighton?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 19,165 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Leighton 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 17,884 US residents.
Is Leighton a common name?
We classify Leighton as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 20,720 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Leighton most popular?
The single biggest year for Leighton was 2022, when 1,144 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Leighton is about 16 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Leighton in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 13,416 people with the name Leighton, or 4.44 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #2,032 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 Leighton 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 Leighton?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Leighton on both sides of the split. Of the 13,417 people counted with this name, 6,455 were male (48.1%) and 6,962 were female (51.9%). 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 Leighton?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Leighton is White at 75.4%. The next largest groups are Black (8.8%) and Two or More Races (5.9%). 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 Leighton most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Leighton in the 2020 Census, accounting for 75.4% (10,118 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 Leighton in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Leighton a female name?
Yes, 55.6% of people registered as Leighton 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 Leighton still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Leighton 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 Leighton 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 Leighton?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.