Coltan
Masculine
Coltan is one letter from a very common American name and it is also, spelled exactly this way, the trade word for a mineral that almost everyone is carrying in a pocket.
How old is the name Coltan?
Coltan first appears in US birth records in 1988 — 37 years ago. The typical Coltan alive today was born around 2006, making them about 19 years old. About 800 people named Coltan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Coltan most popular?
Coltan peaked in 1996, reaching #2535 nationally. See the whole 1996 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Coltan
Coltan is short for columbite-tantalite, a dull black ore, and the tantalum refined from it goes into the capacitors that let a phone or a laptop hold a charge in a very small space. Tantalum was named after Tantalus, the figure in Greek myth condemned to stand in water he cannot drink beneath fruit he cannot reach, because the metal resists acid so stubbornly that the chemist who isolated it said it would not take anything in. A large share of the world's supply comes from the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the trade there has a long and well-documented association with armed groups and forced labor. It is an odd word to share a spelling with: a Greek punishment, a mineral, and a supply chain that a great many people have written about.
Meaningnot established
Not established
If the name is Colton respelled, it comes from an English place name built on a personal name and the ordinary ending for a farmstead. If it was assembled from sounds, it carries nothing. The mineral is not a source; the two words simply arrived at the same spelling.
Pronouncing Coltan
COLE-tun
Two syllables with the stress in front. The ending is light, which is why it gets written -on, -en and -an with no change in sound.
Nicknames for Coltan
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
- 1988
- Most boys named
- 200944 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2535reached in 1996
- Change vs 2023
- −33.3%6 in 2024, 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.
Coltans among us
people named Coltan are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Coltan sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- It is read correctly at first sight and never needs explaining.
- Colt and Cole are both available as short forms and both are familiar.
- It sits in the large family of -ton names Americans are used to seeing in front position.
- Colton is overwhelmingly the commoner spelling, and this one will be corrected to it constantly.
- Typed into a search engine, this exact spelling returns the mineral and its supply chain rather than the name.
- No origin is documented for this form, so the meaning question has nothing settled to answer with.
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Coltan
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Coltans are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 800 people named Coltan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Coltan in 2025?
- Coltan is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Coltan with classmates?
- Coltan will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More C names
The most-given names starting with C, all years combined.
Charles#48 · Christopher#68 · Carl#1132 · Christian#96 · Caleb#58 · Cameron#76 · Carlos#150 · Clarence#1499
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Coltan? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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