Colston
Masculine · “Kol's settlement”
Colston is Kol's settlement — a Norse personal name joined to the English tun, and the surname of a Bristol merchant whose statue was pulled down in 2020.
How old is the name Colston?
Colston first appears in US birth records in 1994 — 31 years ago. The typical Colston is a kid of about 10 — this name's wave is very recent. About 1,200 people named Colston are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Colston most popular?
Colston peaked in 2010, reaching #1687 nationally. Today it ranks #1932, 245 places below that high. See the whole 2010 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Kol tun to Colston
The story of Colston
Edward Colston was a Bristol merchant and a governor of the Royal African Company, which transported some eighty thousand enslaved people; his charitable bequests kept his name on the city's buildings for three centuries. His statue was thrown into the harbor in 2020. The given name appears in American records in current use.
Meaning
Kol's settlement
From the Old Norse personal name Kol, probably from kol, 'coal' or 'dark', and the Old English tun, 'settlement'. Colston in Nottinghamshire preserves it. Norse-English hybrid place names of this kind map the Danelaw. The reading is documented.
How the name formed
- Kol tun
- Colston
Related forms: Kolston · Coleston
Pronouncing Colston
KOHL-stun
Two syllables, stress on the first. Said identically in every English accent.
Nicknames for Colston
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
- 1994
- Most boys named
- 201091 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1687reached in 2010
- Change vs 2024
- +77.8%80 in 2025, from 45
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.
Colston in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kolston in English — spelling variant
- Coleston in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Louisiana, Texas, Michigan.
Colstons among us
people named Colston are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 21,351 born in 2025 was named Colston
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Colston
- #1932
- Colston on the 2025 chart
- #817
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Colston went to 80 boys in 2025, but Kolston is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 111, which makes it the 817th most-given boys’ name of the year — 1,115 places above the chart.
- Colston80
- Kolston31
About 1 boy in 15,388 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 21,351 for Colston 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 Morse test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Colston's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Morse climbed just as high around 1914, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Morse's path sketches the road Colston is walking now.
Colston is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Colston is headed
Colston should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low 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.
Colston beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Colston in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The Norse-English hybrid construction maps Danish settlement, which is a good fact.
- Cole is available as a short form with a large record.
- Two firm syllables that carry well against any surname.
- The Bristol merchant's slave-trading is now the surname's dominant association in Britain.
- It reads as a surname before it reads as a given name.
- Colton and Colston are close enough to cause confusion.
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What they receive
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Colston
Masculine · #1932 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Colstons are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,200 people named Colston are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Colston?
- Colston is the most-used spelling in US records — 80 of the 111 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Kolston.
- How popular is the name Colston in 2025?
- Colston ranks #1932 among US boy names in 2025, with 80 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Colston?
- About 1 in every 21,351 US boys born in 2025 was named Colston — 80 in all.
- Will my child share the name Colston with classmates?
- Colston will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Colston
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Fred#1932 · Zaidyn#1932 · Jacques#1932 · Aj#1932 · Kolbe#1932 · Cristofer#1932 · Irvin#1932 · Cosmo#1932
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Colston? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Colston and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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