Cliffton
Masculine · “Old English clif and tun”
The Clifton Suspension Bridge was designed by a twenty-four-year-old who had never built a bridge. Brunel won the competition in 1831, the money ran out, and it was finished in 1864, five years after he died.
How old is the name Cliffton?
Cliffton first appears in US birth records in 1912 — 113 years ago. The typical Cliffton alive today was born around 1979, making them about 46 years old. About 1,600 people named Cliffton are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Cliffton most popular?
Cliffton peaked in 1977, reaching #1099 nationally. Today it ranks #10695, 9,596 places below that high. See the whole 1977 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From clif tun to Cliffton
The story of Cliffton
The Avon Gorge at Bristol is two hundred and fifty feet deep, and a merchant left money in 1753 to bridge it. The competition was held in 1829, Thomas Telford rejected all the entries including his own committee's, a second competition followed, and Isambard Kingdom Brunel won it at twenty-four with a design nobody was sure could be built. Work began, the company ran out of money in 1843, and the half-finished towers stood for twenty years. After Brunel's death in 1859 his colleagues completed the bridge as a memorial, using chains salvaged from another of his projects, and it opened in 1864. The place name it carries is one of the most ordinary in England, a farmstead by a steep bank, and gave a surname that became an American given name.
Meaning
Old English clif and tun, the farmstead by the cliff
Clifton is an English place name from clif, a cliff or steep bank, and tun, a farmstead, and it occurs in many counties. Cliffton doubles the f, which English orthography would normally reserve for a short vowel it already has. The American peak is 1977.
How the name formed
- clif tun
- Clifton
- Cliffton
Related forms: Clifton
Pronouncing Cliffton
KLIF-tun
Two syllables, stress on the first. Clifton and Cliffton are homophones; the doubled f adds nothing.
Nicknames for Cliffton
Moderate
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
- 1912
- Most boys named
- 197762 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1099reached in 1977
- Change vs 2021
- 0.0%6 in 2025, from 6
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.
Cliffton in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Clifton in English — spelling variant
Clifftons among us
people named Cliffton are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 284,679 born in 2025 was named Cliffton
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Cliffton
- #10695
- Cliffton on the 2025 chart
- #840
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Cliffton went to 6 boys in 2025, but Clifton is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 88, which makes it the 840th most-given boys’ name of the year — 9,855 places above the chart.
- Clifton82
- Cliffton6
About 1 boy in 19,410 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 284,679 for Cliffton itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Orman test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Cliffton's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Orman climbed just as high around 1915, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Orman's path sketches the road Cliffton is walking now.
Cliffton 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
Cliffton beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Cliffton in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Cliff is an immediate short form that stands alone.
- The place-name elements are documented and concrete.
- Two syllables with a firm opening.
- Clifton with one f is the standard spelling.
- The doubled f will be corrected constantly.
- The 1977 peak dates this form.
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Cliffton
Masculine · #10695 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Clifftons are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,600 people named Cliffton are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Cliffton?
- Cliffton is one of 2 recorded spellings. Clifton is the more common one — 82 births in 2025 against 6 for Cliffton.
- How popular is the name Cliffton in 2025?
- Cliffton ranks #10695 among US boy names in 2025, with 6 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Cliffton?
- About 1 in every 284,679 US boys born in 2025 was named Cliffton — 6 in all.
- Will my child share the name Cliffton with classmates?
- Cliffton will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Cliffton
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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