Latham
Masculine · “at the barns”
Latham is a grammatical case ending that outlived its grammar. The -am at the end is the old dative plural, the form a noun took after certain prepositions, so the name means at the barns. English lost its case system centuries ago and kept this fossil in a few dozen place names.
How old is the name Latham?
Latham first appears in US birth records in 1917 — 108 years ago. The typical Latham alive today was born around 2008, making them about 17 years old. About 500 people named Latham are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Latham most popular?
Latham peaked in 1942, reaching #2940 nationally. Today it ranks #6446, 3,506 places below that high. See the whole 1942 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From hlada to Latham
The story of Latham
Scandinavian settlement in northern England left both vocabulary and grammar in the landscape, and the -um dative plural is one of the clearest traces: places named for what they had a lot of took the plural, and the preposition took the case, and the whole phrase froze into a single word once nobody could parse it any more. Lathom in Lancashire and Latham in Yorkshire both work this way. The surname followed the place, crossed to America, and became a given name in the ordinary nineteenth-century fashion. Latham's best year in United States records is 1942, and it has never been common.
Meaning
at the barns
From Old Norse hlada, a barn or storehouse, in the dative plural hlodum, which after the preposition at gives the sense at the barns. The same construction produced Lathom, Laytham and a whole class of English place names ending in -ham or -am that are not from the word for a homestead at all, but from a dead case ending.
How the name formed
- hlada
- hlodum
- Latham
Related forms: Hlodum · Lathom
Pronouncing Latham
LAY-thum
Two syllables with the stress on the first and a long a. The th is voiced, as in father, not as in thin; some families say LATH-um with a short a instead.
Nicknames for Latham
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
- 1917
- Most boys named
- 201529 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2940reached in 1942
- Change vs 2024
- −23.5%13 in 2025, from 17
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.
Latham in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Hlodum in Old Norse — related form
- Lathom in English — spelling variant
Lathams among us
people named Latham are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 131,390 born in 2025 was named Latham
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Julias test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Latham's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Julias climbed just as high around 1925, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Julias's path sketches the road Latham is walking now.
Latham 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
Latham beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Latham 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 an unusually well-understood etymology.
- Rare enough to be distinctive and plain enough to be spelled from hearing.
- Carries a real piece of Old Norse grammar in it.
- Two pronunciations circulate, LAY-thum and LATH-um, with no settled answer.
- It sits close to Lathan, Latham and Nathan and gets confused with all three.
- As a surname-derived name it reads as formal rather than warm.
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Latham
Masculine · #6446 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Lathams are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 500 people named Latham are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Latham in 2025?
- Latham ranks #6446 among US boy names in 2025, with 13 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Latham?
- About 1 in every 131,390 US boys born in 2025 was named Latham — 13 in all.
- Will my child share the name Latham with classmates?
- Latham will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Latham
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 Latham? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Latham and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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