Payton
Feminine · Old English roots · “Pæga's farmstead or estate”
Payton is given to both — 60,045 girls and 24,739 boys since 1880. See Payton as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Payton began as an English place name — a farmstead belonging to a man called Pæga — then became a surname, then crossed to the front of the name in the American way. It is two clean syllables that land the same in every mouth: PAY-tun, no negotiation. The spelling with an a puts the sound right there on the page.
How old is the name Payton?
Payton first appears in US birth records in 1966 — 59 years ago. The typical Payton alive today was born around 2009, making them about 16 years old. About 59,500 people named Payton are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Payton most popular?
Payton peaked in 2010, reaching #79 nationally. Today it ranks #440, 361 places below that high. See the whole 2010 chart.
Where it comes from
From Pæga (Old English personal name) to Payton
The story of Payton
Peyton is a place in Essex, recorded from the medieval period, and like most English villages it passed its name to the families who came from it. As a surname it traveled to America and stayed there, and in the twentieth century it made the usual American journey from last name to first — a route already worn smooth by Taylor, Morgan and Riley. Grace Metalious's 1956 novel Peyton Place, and the television series drawn from it, put the sound into wide circulation in the middle of the century. Payton is the phonetic respelling of that surname, and it is given to boys and girls alike; there is no second origin behind the girls' use, only the one place name reaching both.
Meaning
Pæga's farmstead or estate
The second element is Old English tūn, a settlement or enclosed farm, the same word that ends hundreds of English town names. The first is the personal name Pæga, whose own meaning is not recovered.
How the name formed
- PægaOld English personal name
- Pæga's tūn
- PeytonEnglish place name
- Peytonsurname
- Payton
Related forms: Peyton · Payten · Peighton
Pronouncing Payton
PAY-tun
Stress on the first syllable. The second is swallowed to a soft -tun or -tn; no one says PAY-tawn. The a spelling means the pronunciation is never in doubt, even if the spelling is.
Nicknames for Payton
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
- 1966
- Most girls named
- 20093,646 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #79reached in 2010
- Change vs 2024
- −14.8%701 in 2025, from 823
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.
Payton in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Peyton in English — spelling variant
- Payten in English — spelling variant
- Peighton in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Ohio.
Paytons among us
people named Payton are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 2,293 born in 2025 was named Payton
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 Glenda test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Payton's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Glenda climbed just as high around 1944, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Glenda's path sketches the road Payton is walking now.
Payton is coming down from a big peak (#79 in 2010). This is the stretch of the cycle where a name starts to sound like the decade it ruled.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Payton is headed
Payton is easing off slowly — about 19% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
High confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Payton beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Payton in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Said correctly on first sight by nearly every English speaker — the a makes the vowel unmistakable.
- Works for a boy or a girl with no change in form, since it comes to both from the same surname.
- Two syllables, six letters, no silent letters and no accents to lose in a form field.
- Sits in a long, established family of English place-surnames used as first names, so it needs no explaining.
- Peyton is the older and better-known spelling, so expect a lifetime of gentle corrections — on coffee cups, class lists and airline bookings. Saying it aloud rarely helps, since both spellings sound identical.
- The name is used for boys and girls in similar measure, which means people meeting it on paper will not know which to expect. Some families like that; others find the standing assumption tiring.
- It rose and crested within living memory, so it reads as belonging to a particular stretch of years rather than as an old family name. That is receding now, which is what makes a name feel like itself again rather than like its decade.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Payton
Feminine · Old English roots · #440 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Paytons are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 59,500 people named Payton are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Payton in 2025?
- Payton ranks #440 among US girl names in 2025, with 701 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Payton?
- About 1 in every 2,293 US girls born in 2025 was named Payton — 701 in all.
- Will my child share the name Payton with classmates?
- Payton will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Payton
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lorelei#441 · Gracelynn#442 · Macie#438 · Maddison#438 · Hayden#437 · Mya#443 · Alessandra#443 · Lilliana#445
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Payton? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Payton and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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