Whitaker
Masculine · “white field”
Whitaker is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 849 boys against 11 girls since 1880.
Whitaker is the white field — the Old English hwit and æcer — and an acre was originally as much land as an ox team could plow in a day.
How old is the name Whitaker?
Whitaker first appears in US birth records in 1949 — 76 years ago. The typical Whitaker is a kid of about 7 — this name's wave is very recent. About 800 people named Whitaker are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Whitaker most popular?
Whitaker peaked in 2025, reaching #2167 nationally. Today it ranks #2167, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From hwit æcer to Whitaker
The story of Whitaker
An acre began as a working unit — the strip an ox team could turn in a day — which is why the old measure is long and narrow rather than square. Whitaker in Lancashire gave the surname. It entered American given-name use recently and appears in the registers in current use.
Meaning
white field
From the Old English hwit, 'white', and æcer, 'field' or 'cultivated land'. The acre was defined by a day's ploughing rather than by measurement, and only later fixed. Whitaker is an English place name and surname. The elements are ordinary and undisputed.
How the name formed
- hwit æcer
- Whitaker
Related forms: Whittaker · Acker
Pronouncing Whitaker
WIT-uh-kur
Three syllables, stress on the first. The h is silent in most English accents.
Nicknames for Whitaker
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
- 1949
- Most boys named
- 202566 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2167reached in 2025
- Change vs 2024
- +1.5%66 in 2025, from 65
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.
Whitaker in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Whittaker in English — spelling variant
- Acker in German — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: North Carolina, Texas, Tennessee.
Whitakers among us
people named Whitaker are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 25,880 born in 2025 was named Whitaker
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Whitaker
- #2167
- Whitaker on the 2025 chart
- #828
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Whitaker went to 66 boys in 2025, but Whittaker is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 100, which makes it the 828th most-given boys’ name of the year — 1,339 places above the chart.
- Whitaker66
- Whittaker34
About 1 boy in 17,081 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 25,880 for Whitaker itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Johndavid test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Whitaker's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Johndavid climbed just as high around 1982, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Johndavid's path sketches the road Whitaker is walking now.
Whitaker 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
Where Whitaker is headed
Whitaker should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium 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.
Whitaker beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Whitaker in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- That an acre was defined by a day's ploughing is a first-rate fact.
- Whit is available as a short form with a real record.
- The white-field meaning is concrete and clear.
- It reads unmistakably as a surname.
- Whitaker and Whittaker are both in circulation.
- Three syllables make it moderately long for everyday use.
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What they receive
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Whitaker
Masculine · #2167 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Whitakers are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 800 people named Whitaker are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Whitaker?
- Whitaker is the most-used spelling in US records — 66 of the 100 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Whittaker.
- How popular is the name Whitaker in 2025?
- Whitaker ranks #2167 among US boy names in 2025, with 66 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Whitaker?
- About 1 in every 25,880 US boys born in 2025 was named Whitaker — 66 in all.
- Will my child share the name Whitaker with classmates?
- Whitaker will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Whitaker
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Johnathon#2167 · Koby#2167 · Sir#2167 · Iver#2167 · Binyomin#2167 · June#2167 · Sylus#2167 · Kipp#2167
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Whitaker? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Whitaker and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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