Payton
English name meaning "estate guard" or "royal foreman".
Name Census estimates that about 82,298 living Americans carry the first name Payton. It sits at #381 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 70.7% of registrations being female. The average person named Payton today is around 19 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Payton births was 2008 (4,852 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Payton. 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 Payton with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Payton started out as a boys' name but over the decades crossed over and is now given to girls far more often.
People living today
82K
~ 1 in 4,165 Americans
Peak year
2008
4,852 babies that year
Average age
19
years old
2024 SSA rank
#381
Tracked since 1880
Census
Payton in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 71,783 people with the first name Payton, which placed it at #713 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
#713
National first-name rank
People counted
72K
71,783 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
23.8
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
79.2% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Payton
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Payton is White at 79.2%. The next largest groups are Black (7.3%) and Two or More Races (5.8%). 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 Payton 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 Payton at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White79.2% · 56,841
- Black or African American7.3% · 5,260
- Two or more races5.8% · 4,179
- Hispanic or Latino5.7% · 4,060
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.1% · 804
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.9% · 639
Gender
Gender distribution for Payton
Payton is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 83,955 total registrations, 24,626 (29.3%) were male and 59,329 (70.7%) were female.
Payton as a male name
- Ranked #1,516 in 2024
- 117 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2000 (1,581 births)
Payton as a female name
- Ranked #381 in 2024
- 820 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2009 (3,646 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Payton on both sides of the split. Of the 71,786 people counted with this name, 21,484 were male (29.9%) and 50,302 were female (70.1%).
Popularity
Payton: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Payton from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 36,375 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 2000s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Payton 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 Payton during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Paytons live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. Texas, California, Illinois recorded the most babies named Payton, while District of Columbia, Rhode Island, Vermont recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,580 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Payton
The name Payton has its origins in the Old English language and is derived from the word "Pæga", which means "dweller by the pæga or peacock enclosure". The name is believed to have first emerged in the 5th or 6th century AD in Anglo-Saxon England.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Payton can be found in the Domesday Book, a manuscript record of landholders in England compiled in 1086 by order of William the Conqueror. The entry lists a landowner named "Payton de Warrewic" in the county of Warwickshire.
In the 12th century, a Benedictine monk named Payton of Malmesbury was renowned for his scholarly works, including a chronicle of English history titled "Historia Novella". He lived from around 1095 to 1170.
During the 14th century, Sir Payton Rous was a notable English antiquarian and historian who compiled the "Rous Roll", a genealogical record of the English monarchy from the reign of King Egbert in the 9th century.
In the 16th century, Payton Randolph was a prominent English author and playwright who wrote several works, including the play "The Jealous Lovers" in 1584. He was born in 1542 and died in 1608.
Another notable figure with the name Payton was Sir Payton Ventris, an English jurist and legal scholar who lived from 1638 to 1691. He made significant contributions to the development of English common law and is remembered for his influential legal treatises.
These examples illustrate the long-standing presence of the name Payton in various regions of England and its association with individuals from diverse backgrounds, including scholars, writers, and legal experts throughout history.
People
Payton + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Payton as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with P
Other first names starting with P with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Payton: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Payton?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 82,298 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Payton 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 4,165 US residents.
Is Payton a common name?
We classify Payton as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 83,955 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Payton most popular?
The single biggest year for Payton was 2008, when 4,852 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Payton is about 19 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Payton in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 71,783 people with the name Payton, or 23.77 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #713 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 Payton 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 Payton?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Payton on both sides of the split. Of the 71,786 people counted with this name, 21,484 were male (29.9%) and 50,302 were female (70.1%). 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 Payton?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Payton is White at 79.2%. The next largest groups are Black (7.3%) and Two or More Races (5.8%). 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 Payton most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Payton in the 2020 Census, accounting for 79.2% (56,841 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 Payton in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Payton a female name?
Yes, 70.7% of people registered as Payton 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 Payton still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Payton 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 Payton 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 Payton?
Want to know how many Americans are named Payton? HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, puts the living-bearer count front and centre.