Welton
From an English surname denoting someone from a farm or town.
Name Census estimates that about 1,090 living Americans carry the first name Welton. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Welton today is around 65 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Welton births was 1924 (67 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Welton. 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.
People living today
1.1K
~ 1 in 314,454 Americans
Peak year
1924
67 babies that year
Average age
65
years old
2015 SSA rank
#9,511
Tracked since 1893
Census
Welton in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,002 people with the first name Welton, which placed it at #12,418 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
#12,418
National first-name rank
People counted
1.0K
1,002 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
57.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Welton
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Welton is Black at 57.9%. The next largest groups are White (35.1%) and Two or More Races (2.5%). 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 Welton 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 Welton at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American57.9% · 580
- White35.1% · 352
- Two or more races2.5% · 25
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.0% · 20
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.3% · 13
- Hispanic or Latino1.2% · 12
Popularity
Welton: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Welton from the 1890s through to the 2010s, spanning 13 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 537 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1920s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Welton 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 Welton during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Weltons live
The SSA's state-level files cover 13 states and territories. Texas, Louisiana, Virginia recorded the most babies named Welton, while Ohio, Maryland, Missouri recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 59 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Welton
The name Welton is an English given name derived from a surname that originated as a toponymic name, referring to someone from a place called Welton. The name Welton is believed to have originated from the Old English words "well" meaning a spring or stream, and "tun" meaning an enclosure or settlement, collectively referring to a settlement near a spring or stream.
Welton was initially used as a locational surname, identifying people by the place they were from. The earliest recorded use of Welton as a surname dates back to the Domesday Book of 1086, where it was recorded as "Welletone" and "Welletune" in various counties across England.
As a given name, Welton first appeared in the late 16th century, likely as a result of the practice of using surnames as first names. One of the earliest recorded instances of Welton as a first name was in 1597, when a Welton Marshe was mentioned in parish records from Gloucestershire, England.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Welton as their first name. One of the earliest was Welton Simons (c. 1620-1677), an English Puritan minister who served as the vicar of St. Mary's Church in Reading, Berkshire.
Another notable bearer of the name was Welton Stanford (1785-1870), a British naval officer who served in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars and later became a prominent author and philosopher.
In the United States, one of the earliest recorded individuals with the name Welton was Welton Hoskins (1786-1864), a Baptist minister and educator from Virginia who founded the Meadville Theological School in Pennsylvania.
Welton Jude (1901-1975) was an American actor and playwright who appeared in several Broadway productions and Hollywood films in the mid-20th century.
More recently, Welton Gaddy (born 1942) is an American Baptist minister and activist who served as the president of the Interfaith Alliance from 1995 to 2014, advocating for the separation of church and state.
While not an exhaustive list, these examples showcase the use of the name Welton throughout history, with individuals from various backgrounds and professions bearing this distinctive English name.
People
Welton + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Welton as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with W
Other first names starting with W with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Welton: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Welton?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 1,090 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Welton 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 314,454 US residents.
Is Welton a common name?
We classify Welton as "Rare". It ranks above 90.7% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 2,593 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Welton most popular?
The single biggest year for Welton was 1924, when 67 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Welton is about 65 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Welton in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,002 people with the name Welton, or 0.33 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #12,418 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 Welton 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 Welton?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Welton leans strongly male. 993 people counted with this name were male (98.8%), compared with 12 female bearers (1.2%). 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 Welton?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Welton is Black at 57.9%. The next largest groups are White (35.1%) and Two or More Races (2.5%). 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 Welton most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Welton in the 2020 Census, accounting for 57.9% (580 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 Welton in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Welton a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Welton 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 Welton still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Welton 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 Welton 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 share the name Welton?
Want to know how many Americans are named Welton? HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, puts the living-bearer count front and centre.