Linton
Masculine · “the flax enclosure”
A Linton is the flax farm, and flax was how most people got their clothes. Before cotton arrived in quantity, linen was the ordinary cloth of northern Europe, every district grew the plant, and the place names record it: Linton, Linthorpe, Linfield, Lindale.
How old is the name Linton?
Linton first appears in US birth records in 1883 — 142 years ago. The typical Linton alive today was born around 1947, making them about 78 years old. About 1,100 people named Linton are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Linton most popular?
Linton peaked in 1889, reaching #581 nationally. See the whole 1889 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From lin tun to Linton
The story of Linton
Growing flax and turning it into cloth was an enormous amount of work — retting, breaking, scutching, heckling, spinning — and it was done in almost every rural household in Britain for a thousand years. The place names are a map of that. What complicates the reading is that a very similar front means a lime tree in the Scandinavian languages and something else again in Welsh, so Linton, Lindale and Linwood share three letters and three different meanings. Linton is the one that is reliably about flax, and it crossed to America as a surname before moving to the front of the name.
Meaning
the flax enclosure
Old English lin is flax, and tun is a farmstead or enclosure. The same lin sits behind the words linen, linseed and lingerie, all of them the same plant.
How the name formed
- lin tun
- Linton
Pronouncing Linton
LIN-tun
Two syllables with the weight at the front, the second reduced to a hum.
Nicknames for Linton
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
- 1883
- Most boys named
- 192250 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #581reached in 1889
- Change vs 2019
- −25.0%6 in 2023, from 8
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.
Lintons among us
people named Linton 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
Linton 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
- Both halves are readable, so the name is said correctly at sight.
- It works as a surname and as a first name, which suits families that use both.
- The meaning is concrete and connects to several ordinary English words.
- Linton, Lynton and Lindon are near neighbors and will be confused.
- It sits inside a very large set of English place names and does not stand out.
- It reads clearly as a name of the nineteenth century.
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Linton
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Lintons are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,100 people named Linton are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Linton in 2025?
- Linton is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Linton with classmates?
- Linton 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 Linton? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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