Peyton
An English name meaning "high town" or "peaceful meadow".
Name Census estimates that about 136,193 living Americans carry the first name Peyton. It sits at #168 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 62.5% of registrations being female. The average person named Peyton today is around 17 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Peyton births was 2009 (8,027 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Peyton. 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 Peyton with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Peyton started out as a boys' name but over the decades crossed over and is now given to girls far more often.
- • Peyton sits in rare territory as a truly gender-neutral name, given to boys and girls in near-equal numbers.
- • Peyton is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 17 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
136K
~ 1 in 2,517 Americans
Peak year
2009
8,027 babies that year
Average age
17
years old
2024 SSA rank
#168
Tracked since 1884
Census
Peyton in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 113,473 people with the first name Peyton, which placed it at #495 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
#495
National first-name rank
People counted
113K
113,473 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
37.6
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
77.5% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Peyton
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Peyton is White at 77.5%. The next largest groups are Black (8.2%) and Two or More Races (6.1%). 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 Peyton 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 Peyton at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White77.5% · 87,887
- Black or African American8.2% · 9,292
- Two or more races6.1% · 6,912
- Hispanic or Latino5.9% · 6,666
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.5% · 1,650
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.9% · 1,066
Gender
Gender distribution for Peyton
Peyton is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 138,617 total registrations, 51,982 (37.5%) were male and 86,635 (62.5%) were female.
Peyton as a male name
- Ranked #658 in 2024
- 417 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2007 (3,375 births)
Peyton as a female name
- Ranked #168 in 2024
- 1,812 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2009 (5,317 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Peyton on both sides of the split. Of the 113,474 people counted with this name, 44,518 were male (39.2%) and 68,956 were female (60.8%).
Popularity
Peyton: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Peyton 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 55,441 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
Peyton 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 Peyton during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Peytons live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. Texas, California, Ohio recorded the most babies named Peyton, while District of Columbia, Rhode Island, Vermont recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 2,648 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Peyton
The name Peyton is an English name that originated in the medieval period. It is a habitational surname derived from the village of Peyton in Suffolk, England. The name Peyton likely comes from the Old English words "pegga" meaning hill or high ground, and "tun" meaning enclosure or settlement, suggesting the name means "settlement on the hill."
Peyton first appeared as a surname in historical records dating back to the 12th century. One of the earliest recorded instances was Walter de Peituna, who was mentioned in the Pipe Rolls of Norfolk in 1166. The name continued to be used as a surname throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era.
Over time, the surname Peyton evolved into a given name, particularly in England and later in the United States. One of the earliest recorded individuals with the first name Peyton was Sir John Peyton (1545-1616), an English nobleman who served as Lieutenant of the Tower of London under Queen Elizabeth I.
Another notable figure in history with the first name Peyton was Peyton Randolph (1721-1775), who was the first President of the Continental Congress and a prominent figure in the American Revolution. Additionally, Peyton Rous (1879-1970) was an American pathologist and virologist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1966 for his discovery of tumor-inducing viruses.
In the realm of literature, Peyton Farquhar was the protagonist in the famous short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce, published in 1890. Peyton Amis (1918-2003) was also a British novelist and poet, known for his works such as "The Green Man" and "The Russian Girl."
While Peyton has been used as a given name for both males and females throughout history, it has gained particular popularity as a feminine name in more recent times. However, this detailed report focuses solely on the historical origins and usage of the first name Peyton, without delving into modern trends or statistics.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Peyton
People
Peyton + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Peyton 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
Peyton: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Peyton?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 136,193 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Peyton 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 2,517 US residents.
Is Peyton a common name?
We classify Peyton as "Common". It ranks above 99.6% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 138,617 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Peyton most popular?
The single biggest year for Peyton was 2009, when 8,027 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Peyton is about 17 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Peyton in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 113,473 people with the name Peyton, or 37.57 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #495 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 Peyton 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 Peyton?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Peyton on both sides of the split. Of the 113,474 people counted with this name, 44,518 were male (39.2%) and 68,956 were female (60.8%). 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 Peyton?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Peyton is White at 77.5%. The next largest groups are Black (8.2%) and Two or More Races (6.1%). 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 Peyton most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Peyton in the 2020 Census, accounting for 77.5% (87,887 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 Peyton in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Peyton a female name?
Yes, 62.5% of people registered as Peyton 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 Peyton still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Peyton 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 Peyton 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 have Peyton as a first name?
For a quick modern take, check how many Americans are named Peyton on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org.