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
Census
Whitten in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 400 people with the first name Whitten, which placed it at #24,171 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
#24,171
National first-name rank
People counted
400
400 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
90.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Whitten
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Whitten is White at 90.3%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (3.5%) and Two or More Races (3.3%). 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 Whitten 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 Whitten at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White90.3% · 361
- Hispanic or Latino3.5% · 14
- Two or more races3.3% · 13
- Black or African American2.0% · 8
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.5% · 2
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.5% · 2
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)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Whitten leans strongly male. 341 people counted with this name were male (87.9%), compared with 47 female bearers (12.1%).
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.
How common was Whitten in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 400 people with the name Whitten, or 0.13 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #24,171 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 Whitten 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 Whitten?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Whitten leans strongly male. 341 people counted with this name were male (87.9%), compared with 47 female bearers (12.1%). 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 Whitten?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Whitten is White at 90.3%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (3.5%) and Two or More Races (3.3%). 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 Whitten most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Whitten in the 2020 Census, accounting for 90.3% (361 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 Whitten in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
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.
Is Whitten still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Whitten 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 Whitten 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 called Whitten?
Find out how many Americans are named Whitten on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — a quick modern estimate with the living-bearer count front and centre.