Winthrop
Home by the friendly enclosure or harbor.
Name Census estimates that about 454 living Americans carry the first name Winthrop. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Winthrop today is around 65 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Winthrop births was 1915 (48 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Winthrop. 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.
Key insights
- • The typical person named Winthrop is about 65 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Winthrops were born before 1971.
People living today
454
~ 1 in 754,966 Americans
Peak year
1915
48 babies that year
Average age
65
years old
2023 SSA rank
#12,163
Tracked since 1883
Census
Winthrop in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 559 people with the first name Winthrop, which placed it at #19,094 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
#19,094
National first-name rank
People counted
559
559 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
75.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Winthrop
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Winthrop is White at 75.3%. The next largest groups are Black (17.9%) and Two or More Races (3.6%). 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 Winthrop 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 Winthrop at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White75.3% · 421
- Black or African American17.9% · 100
- Two or more races3.6% · 20
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.0% · 11
- Hispanic or Latino1.1% · 6
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.2% · 1
Popularity
Winthrop: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Winthrop from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 14 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1910s, with 216 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1910s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Winthrop 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 Winthrop during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Winthrops live
The SSA's state-level files cover 3 states and territories. Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut recorded the most babies named Winthrop, while Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 88 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Winthrop
The name Winthrop has its origins in the Old English language, dating back to the Anglo-Saxon period in Britain. It is derived from two words: "win," meaning friend or lover, and "throp," meaning village or settlement. The original meaning of the name is believed to be "the friendly village" or "the settlement of friends."
One of the earliest recorded uses of the name Winthrop can be found in the Domesday Book, a comprehensive record of landholdings in England commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1086. The name appears as "Winethrop," referring to a village or manor in Suffolk, England.
The name gained prominence in the 17th century with the rise of the Winthrop family, who played a significant role in the early history of colonial America. John Winthrop (1588-1649) was a Puritan leader and the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He is considered one of the principal founders of the city of Boston and is remembered for his famous sermon, "A Model of Christian Charity."
Another notable Winthrop was John Winthrop the Younger (1606-1676), the son of the first governor. He served as the governor of Connecticut Colony and was instrumental in establishing its democratic government. He also played a crucial role in obtaining a royal charter for the colony in 1662.
In the 18th century, John Winthrop (1714-1779), a mathematician and astronomer, was a prominent figure in the American Enlightenment. He taught at Harvard College and made significant contributions to the study of astronomy and physics.
The name Winthrop also appears in literature, with one of the most famous examples being the character of Winthrop in Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel "The Scarlet Letter" (1850). This character was a minor but symbolically significant figure in the story, representing the rigid Puritan society of colonial New England.
Another notable individual with the name Winthrop was Robert C. Winthrop (1809-1894), a prominent American lawyer, politician, and philanthropist. He served as the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1847 to 1849 and was a staunch opponent of slavery and secession.
People
Winthrop + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Winthrop 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
Winthrop: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Winthrop?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 454 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Winthrop 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 754,966 US residents.
Is Winthrop a common name?
We classify Winthrop as "Very Rare". It ranks above 83.6% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,178 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Winthrop most popular?
The single biggest year for Winthrop was 1915, when 48 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Winthrop 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 Winthrop in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 559 people with the name Winthrop, or 0.19 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #19,094 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 Winthrop 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 Winthrop?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Winthrop appears almost entirely male. Of the 560 people counted with this name, 99.3% were male and only a very small share were female. 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 Winthrop?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Winthrop is White at 75.3%. The next largest groups are Black (17.9%) and Two or More Races (3.6%). 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 Winthrop most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Winthrop in the 2020 Census, accounting for 75.3% (421 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 Winthrop in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Winthrop a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Winthrop 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 Winthrop still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Winthrop 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 Winthrop 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 Winthrop?
You can see how many people have the name Winthrop on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — same data roots, lighter UI.