Hilton
Masculine · “hill farmstead”
Hilton is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 6,925 boys against 65 girls since 1880.
The -ton in Hilton is the word town in its oldest form. Old English tun meant an enclosure, then a farmstead, then a village, and only much later a town of any size; it is the single most common ending in English place names, and every one of them is a fenced piece of ground.
How old is the name Hilton?
Hilton first appears in US birth records in 1882 — 143 years ago. The typical Hilton alive today was born around 1944, making them about 81 years old. About 3,200 people named Hilton are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Hilton most popular?
Hilton peaked in 1905, reaching #491 nationally. Today it ranks #6446, 5,955 places below that high. See the whole 1905 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From hyll tun to Hilton
The story of Hilton
There are Hiltons in Derbyshire, Dorset, Durham, Staffordshire and Yorkshire, all describing the same ordinary situation, and each of them produced a family that took the name. Surnames of this kind crossed to America early and were converted to first names in the nineteenth century, when English place-name surnames were the most fashionable source for American boys' names. Hilton's best year in United States records is 1905, well before the hotel chain founded in 1919 gave the word a different weight entirely. It has been rare as a given name since the 1940s.
Meaning
hill farmstead
From Old English hyll, a hill, and tun, an enclosure, farmstead or estate. The tun element is the direct ancestor of modern English town and is cognate with German Zaun, a fence, which preserves the original sense of the boundary rather than what is inside it. The name is a plain description of where a settlement sat.
How the name formed
- hyll tun
- Hilton
- Hilton
Related forms: Hylton · Huelten
Pronouncing Hilton
HIL-tun
Two syllables with the stress on the first and the second reduced. The -ton is said the same way as in every other English place name of the type.
Nicknames for Hilton
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
- 1882
- Most boys named
- 1924135 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #491reached in 1905
- Change vs 2022
- −27.8%13 in 2025, from 18
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.
Hilton in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Hylton in English — spelling variant
- Huelten in German — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina.
Hiltons among us
people named Hilton are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 131,390 born in 2025 was named Hilton
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
Hilton 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
Hilton beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Hilton in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A genuine English place and surname with a fully documented meaning.
- The -ton ending is completely at home in current American naming.
- Six letters, two syllables, and no spelling ambiguity.
- The hotel chain is the first association for almost every adult.
- Hylton and Hilton both circulate as surnames.
- It reads as a name of the early twentieth century in American ears.
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Hilton
Masculine · #6446 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Hiltons are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,200 people named Hilton are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Hilton in 2025?
- Hilton ranks #6446 among US boy names in 2025, with 13 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Hilton?
- About 1 in every 131,390 US boys born in 2025 was named Hilton — 13 in all.
- Will my child share the name Hilton with classmates?
- Hilton will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Hilton
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Rollie#6446 · Billie#6446 · Worth#6446 · Blas#6446 · Starling#6446 · Alvis#6446 · Elwyn#6446 · Rollin#6446
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Hilton? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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