Langdon
Masculine · “Long hill”
Langdon is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 1,156 boys against 10 girls since 1880.
The don at the end of Langdon is a hill, and it is the same word as down. The direction and the landform are one word: to go off the hill was to go off-dun, which wore down to down, and the hill sense survives in place names and in the chalk downs of southern England.
How old is the name Langdon?
Langdon first appears in US birth records in 1911 — 114 years ago. The typical Langdon alive today was born around 1990, making them about 35 years old. About 900 people named Langdon are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Langdon most popular?
Langdon peaked in 1911, reaching #1740 nationally. See the whole 1911 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Langdun to Langdon
The story of Langdon
The word did something unusual. Old English dun meant a hill; the phrase for coming off one was of dune, which shortened to adune and then to down, and by the Middle Ages that had become the ordinary word for the direction. The original sense survived in place names, in the South Downs and the North Downs, which are hills and are called downs, and in the word dune, which came back into English separately from Dutch. So a modern English speaker uses the same four letters for a direction and for a hill without noticing, and the direction is the newer of the two by a long way.
Meaning
Long hill
Old English lang, long, and dun, a hill, describing a ridge rather than a peak. Both elements are among the commonest in English place naming. The surname identifies a family from one of the several places called this, and nothing in it describes a person.
How the name formed
- Langdun
- Langdon
Pronouncing Langdon
LANG-dun
Two syllables with the stress at the front. The second is reduced to nothing, which is true of every English place name ending in -don and is why they are so often misspelled from dictation.
Nicknames for Langdon
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
- 1911
- Most boys named
- 200533 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1740reached in 1911
- Change vs 2022
- −36.4%7 in 2024, from 11
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.
Langdons among us
people named Langdon 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
Langdon 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
- Short, firm and easy to spell, with a meaning that fits in two words.
- Lang and Don are two short forms with nothing in common and both stand alone.
- It works for a child of either sex, which the record confirms.
- The record carries it for girls as well as boys, so it signals nothing on a form.
- It reads as a surname and will be entered in the wrong column on forms.
- It will be heard as Langston and Landon, both of which are commoner.
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Langdon
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Langdons are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 900 people named Langdon are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Langdon in 2025?
- Langdon is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Langdon with classmates?
- Langdon will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More L names
The most-given names starting with L, all years combined.
Larry#1084 · Lawrence#518 · Louis#249 · Logan#53 · Liam#1 · Lucas#10 · Luke#33 · Leonard#637
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Langdon? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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