Maxwell
A masculine name of Scottish origin meaning "great stream".
Name Census estimates that about 102,108 living Americans carry the first name Maxwell. It sits at #182 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It is a predominantly male name (99.3% of registrations). The average person named Maxwell today is around 20 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Maxwell births was 2014 (3,773 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Maxwell. 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 Maxwell with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Maxwell is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 720 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
102K
~ 1 in 3,357 Americans
Peak year
2014
3,773 babies that year
Average age
20
years old
2024 SSA rank
#182
Tracked since 1880
Census
Maxwell in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 83,276 people with the first name Maxwell, which placed it at #634 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
#634
National first-name rank
People counted
83K
83,276 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
27.6
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
77.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Maxwell
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Maxwell is White at 77.0%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (7.0%) and Hispanic (6.9%). 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 Maxwell 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 Maxwell at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White77.0% · 64,123
- Two or more races7.0% · 5,797
- Hispanic or Latino6.9% · 5,757
- Black or African American5.7% · 4,779
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.1% · 2,597
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.3% · 223
Gender
Gender distribution for Maxwell
Out of the 107,524 babies given the name Maxwell since 1880, 99.3% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Maxwell as a male name
- Ranked #182 in 2024
- 2,021 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2014 (3,739 births)
Maxwell as a female name
- Ranked #4,831 in 2024
- 28 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2017 (66 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Maxwell appears almost entirely male. Of the 83,285 people counted with this name, 99.4% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Maxwell: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Maxwell from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 32,802 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Maxwell remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Maxwell 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 Maxwell during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Maxwells live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, New York, Ohio recorded the most babies named Maxwell, while Wyoming, Montana, Hawaii recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 2,003 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Maxwell
The name Maxwell has its origins in the medieval Scottish surname derived from the Old English words "mæssere" meaning "monk's servant" and "wella" meaning "spring" or "stream". It essentially referred to someone who worked at a monastery spring or well. The name first emerged in the 12th century among the Scottish lowlands and northern England.
The earliest known record of the surname Maxwell dates back to 1156, when Undwain Maxwell witnessed a charter by Walter FitzAlan, the first High Steward of Scotland. Over the next few centuries, the Maxwell family rose to become one of the most powerful noble families in Scotland, holding lands and titles such as the Earldom of Nithsdale.
As a given name, Maxwell first gained popularity in the 16th and 17th centuries, likely influenced by the prominence of the Maxwell clan. One of the earliest recorded instances of the name was Sir Maxwell Sturt, an English landowner and politician born around 1540.
Notable historical figures named Maxwell include James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879), the renowned Scottish physicist best known for his work on electromagnetism and the kinetic theory of gases. Another famous bearer of the name was William Maxwell Aitken (1879-1964), better known as Lord Beaverbrook, a Canadian-British businessman, politician, and writer.
In the United States, Maxwell Anderson (1888-1959) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and author, while Maxwell Taylor (1901-1987) was a highly decorated American general and diplomat who served as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Other notable figures named Maxwell include Maxwell Perkins (1884-1947), an influential American book editor who worked with authors like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, and Maxwell Maltz (1899-1975), an American cosmetic surgeon and author best known for his book "Psycho-Cybernetics".
The name Maxwell has remained popular throughout the English-speaking world, particularly in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, and continues to be a well-established and respected name with a rich historical legacy.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Maxwell
People
Maxwell + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Maxwell as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with M
Other first names starting with M with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Maxwell: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Maxwell?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 102,108 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Maxwell 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 3,357 US residents.
Is Maxwell a common name?
We classify Maxwell as "Common". It ranks above 99.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 107,524 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Maxwell most popular?
The single biggest year for Maxwell was 2014, when 3,773 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Maxwell is about 20 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Maxwell in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 83,276 people with the name Maxwell, or 27.57 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #634 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 Maxwell 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 Maxwell?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Maxwell appears almost entirely male. Of the 83,285 people counted with this name, 99.4% were male and only a very small share were female. 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 Maxwell?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Maxwell is White at 77.0%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (7.0%) and Hispanic (6.9%). 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 Maxwell most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Maxwell in the 2020 Census, accounting for 77.0% (64,123 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 Maxwell in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Maxwell a male name?
Yes, 99.3% of people registered as Maxwell 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 Maxwell still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Maxwell 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 Maxwell 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 Maxwell?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.