Clifton
Masculine · “settlement by the cliff”
Clifton is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 70,249 boys against 436 girls since 1880.
Clifton is a settlement on a cliff — one of the plainest English place names there is, repeated across a dozen counties and describing exactly what it says.
How old is the name Clifton?
Clifton was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Clifton alive today was born around 1954, making them about 71 years old. About 38,000 people named Clifton are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Clifton most popular?
Clifton peaked in 1915, reaching #144 nationally. Today it ranks #1906, 1,762 places below that high. See the whole 1915 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From clif + tun to Clifton
The story of Clifton
Cliftons occur across England — in Bristol, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire and elsewhere — and the families from them carried the surname. It crossed into American given-name use in the nineteenth century, in the same wave that produced Milton, Burton, Preston and Alton, and Clifton peaked in American records around 1920.
Meaning
settlement by the cliff
From the Old English clif, 'cliff' or 'steep bank', and tun, 'enclosure' or 'farmstead'. Both survive in modern English, which makes this one of the few place names an English speaker can read without help.
How the name formed
- clif + tun
- Clifton
Related forms: Cliffton · Clift
Pronouncing Clifton
KLIF-tun
Two syllables, stress on the first. Both elements are ordinary English words.
Nicknames for Clifton
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
- 1880
- Most boys named
- 19751,214 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #144reached in 1915
- Change vs 2022
- +5.1%82 in 2025, from 78
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.
Clifton in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Cliffton in English — spelling variant
- Clift in English — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, North Carolina, Florida.
Cliftons among us
people named Clifton are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 20,830 born in 2025 was named Clifton
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
Clifton 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
Where Clifton is headed
Clifton should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Clifton beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Clifton in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is completely transparent to any English speaker.
- Cliff is available as a short form with an independent record.
- A documented English place-name history across many counties.
- It reads as a surname to many people, which is what it was for centuries.
- It is strongly period-coded to the early twentieth century.
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What they receive
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Clifton
Masculine · #1906 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Cliftons are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 38,000 people named Clifton are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Clifton in 2025?
- Clifton ranks #1906 among US boy names in 2025, with 82 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Clifton?
- About 1 in every 20,830 US boys born in 2025 was named Clifton — 82 in all.
- Will my child share the name Clifton with classmates?
- Clifton will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Clifton
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Cornelius#1906 · Linus#1906 · Tayden#1906 · Braxtyn#1906 · Jeronimo#1906 · Huck#1906 · Neal#1906 · Yechiel#1906
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Clifton? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Clifton and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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