Whitten
White or fair-haired; from an Old English surname originally denoting complexion.
Name Census estimates that about 491 living Americans carry the first name Whitten. It is a predominantly male name (95.6% of registrations). The average person named Whitten today is around 10 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Whitten births was 2022 (43 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Whitten. 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
491
~ 1 in 698,074 Americans
Peak year
2022
43 babies that year
Average age
10
years old
2024 SSA rank
#4,175
Tracked since 1997
Gender
Gender distribution for Whitten
Whitten leans heavily male at 95.6% of total registrations, but 22 girls have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Whitten as a male name
- Ranked #4,175 in 2024
- 26 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2022 (43 births)
Whitten as a female name
- Ranked #13,384 in 2021
- 7 female births in 2021
- Peak: 2021 (7 births)
Popularity
Whitten: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Whitten from the 1990s through to the 2020s, spanning 4 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 245 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Whitten remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Whitten 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 Whitten during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Whittens live
Origin
Meaning and history of Whitten
The name Whitten has its origins in Old English and is derived from the word "hwit," meaning white. This name was likely given to individuals with fair or pale complexions during the Anglo-Saxon period in England, which lasted from the 5th to the 11th century.
Whitten was a relatively common name among the Anglo-Saxons, particularly in areas such as Wessex and Mercia. It was often used as a descriptive name to distinguish individuals with light hair or skin from others within their community.
While there are no known references to the name Whitten in ancient texts or religious scriptures, it does appear in some historical records from medieval England. One of the earliest recorded instances is that of Whitten of Winchester, a scholar and cleric who lived in the late 10th century.
Another notable figure with the name Whitten was Sir Whitten de Montfort, a Norman knight who fought alongside William the Conqueror during the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. He was granted lands in Warwickshire for his service and established the Montfort family line.
In the 13th century, a Franciscan friar named Whitten of Oxford gained recognition for his scholarly works on theology and philosophy. He was born in Oxford around 1220 and is believed to have died in Paris in the late 1200s.
During the Renaissance period, Whitten Browne (1550-1615) was a prominent English author and translator who is best known for his work on the popular book "The Book of Merry Riddles."
In the 18th century, Whitten Revell (1722-1789) was an English architect and surveyor who designed several notable buildings in London, including the Guildhall Library and the church of St. Mary Aldermanbury.
These are just a few examples of historical figures who bore the name Whitten, which has its roots in the Anglo-Saxon period and was initially used as a descriptive name for individuals with fair complexions.
People
Whitten + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Whitten 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
Whitten: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Whitten?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 491 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Whitten 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 698,074 US residents.
Is Whitten a common name?
We classify Whitten as "Very Rare". It ranks above 84.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 495 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Whitten most popular?
The single biggest year for Whitten was 2022, when 43 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Whitten is about 10 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
Is Whitten a male name?
Yes, 95.6% of people registered as Whitten 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.
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.