Charlton
Masculine
Charlton is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 3,530 boys against 5 girls since 1880.
Charlton means the farmstead of the free peasants, and the word behind it has had a hard life. Old English ceorl named a free man of the lowest rank — not a slave, not a noble — and by the fifteenth century it had become churl, a word for a boor. The place name kept the older, neutral sense. Charlton's American peak is 1890.
How old is the name Charlton?
Charlton first appears in US birth records in 1888 — 137 years ago. The typical Charlton alive today was born around 1975, making them about 50 years old. About 2,700 people named Charlton are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Charlton most popular?
Charlton peaked in 1890, reaching #814 nationally. Today it ranks #5861, 5,047 places below that high. See the whole 1890 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From ceorla tun to Charlton
The story of Charlton
There are Charltons and Charltons-variants across England — in Kent, Wiltshire, Northumberland, London and elsewhere — and each produced its own family, so the surname is common and has many independent origins. It crossed to America early. Its promotion to a given name belongs to the nineteenth-century American practice of using a family surname as a son's first name, and the record peaks in 1890 with the rest of that cohort. The actor Charlton Heston, born John Charles Carter, took his stage name from his stepfather's surname and kept the name visible through the second half of the twentieth century.
Meaning
the settlement of the free peasants
Old English ceorl, a free man of common rank, and tun, a farmstead or settlement. A ceorlatun was a village of such men, as distinct from one held directly by a lord, and the name occurs many times across England. The social meaning of ceorl declined steadily after the Norman Conquest until the word became churl, an insult; the place names preserve the earlier sense, which is the more accurate one for the etymology.
How the name formed
- ceorla tun
- Charlton
- Charlton
Related forms: Charleton · Carlton
Pronouncing Charlton
CHARL-tun
Two syllables, stress on the first, with the ending reduced to a schwa. There is no competing saying, and the spelling gives no trouble.
Nicknames for Charlton
High
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1888
- Most boys named
- 197576 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #814reached in 1890
- Change vs 2023
- +66.7%15 in 2025, from 9
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Charlton in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Charleton in English — spelling variant
- Carlton in English — related form
Charltons among us
people named Charlton are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 113,872 born in 2025 was named Charlton
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Charlton sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Charlton beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Charlton in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Charlie is a ready-made short form of very long standing.
- The place-name elements are genuinely Old English and easy to explain.
- It reads as formal and traditional while being uncommon.
- It is easily confused with Carlton, which is a different place name.
- Its American curve is late-nineteenth-century, which places a bearer's generation.
- The word churl descends from the same element, which some people know.
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Charlton
Masculine · #5861 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Charltons are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,700 people named Charlton are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Charlton in 2025?
- Charlton ranks #5861 among US boy names in 2025, with 15 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Charlton?
- About 1 in every 113,872 US boys born in 2025 was named Charlton — 15 in all.
- Will my child share the name Charlton with classmates?
- Charlton will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Charlton
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Eber#5861 · Wilton#5861 · Ruby#5861 · Stacy#5861 · Garner#5861 · Caldwell#5861 · Severin#5861 · Newton#5861
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Charlton? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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