Wilton
Masculine · “the farmstead on the Wylye”
Wilton is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 8,653 boys against 41 girls since 1880.
Wilton is an English place before it is a person: a town in Wiltshire that gave its name to the whole county and, later, to a kind of carpet woven there. As a given name it belongs to the American surname-name habit of the early twentieth century, and its peak — inside the top four hundred and thirty in 1924 — puts it beside Milton, Melvin and Carlton rather than beside anything modern.
How old is the name Wilton?
Wilton was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Wilton alive today was born around 1940, making them about 85 years old. About 3,400 people named Wilton are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Wilton most popular?
Wilton peaked in 1924, reaching #422 nationally. Today it ranks #5861, 5,439 places below that high. See the whole 1924 chart.
Where it comes from
From welig-tun to Wilton
The story of Wilton
Wilton in Wiltshire was a royal town of Wessex and gave its name to the shire; the county is Wiltshire because Wilton was its center before Salisbury was. From the seventeenth century the town was known for weaving, and Wilton carpets became a general term for a particular cut-pile construction. The surname followed the place, as English locative surnames do, and crossed to America. Its conversion to a first name belongs to the great American surname wave of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which put Milton, Carlton, Wilton, Marion and Clinton on birth certificates in large numbers and then withdrew them again by mid-century.
Meaningscholars disagree
the farmstead on the Wylye; or the farm by the willows
Old English tun means an enclosure, a farmstead or a settlement, and it is the commonest of all English place-name endings. The first element is disputed for this particular name. Wilton in Wiltshire sits on the River Wylye and is generally read as the settlement on that river, whose own name is Brittonic and means something like the tricky or rolling one. Other Wiltons elsewhere in England are read instead as welig-tun, the farm among the willows. Both explanations are correct for different places.
How the name formed
- welig-tun
- Wilton
- Wilton
Related forms: Wilton · Wilton
Pronouncing Wilton
WIL-tun
Two syllables, stress on the first, with the ending reduced to a schwa. Exactly as the English town and the carpet. No competing saying exists.
Nicknames for Wilton
High
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
- 1880
- Most boys named
- 1922194 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #422reached in 1924
- Change vs 2022
- −21.1%15 in 2025, from 19
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.
Wilton in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Wilton in English — same name
- Wilton in Portuguese — same name
Wiltons among us
people named Wilton are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 113,872 born in 2025 was named Wilton
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 Emmitt test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Wilton's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Emmitt climbed just as high around 1905, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Emmitt's path sketches the road Wilton is walking now.
Wilton 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
Wilton beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Wilton in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Will is a ready-made short form with centuries of use behind it.
- The pronunciation is obvious on sight to any English reader.
- The place and the surname behind it are genuinely old and documented.
- Its American curve is firmly 1900-1940, which dates a bearer's generation.
- It is easily heard as Milton, Wilson or Walton.
- In Brazil it is a common name with a different pronunciation, which occasionally surprises.
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What they receive
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Wilton
Masculine · #5861 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Wiltons are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,400 people named Wilton are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Wilton in 2025?
- Wilton ranks #5861 among US boy names in 2025, with 15 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Wilton?
- About 1 in every 113,872 US boys born in 2025 was named Wilton — 15 in all.
- Will my child share the name Wilton with classmates?
- Wilton will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Wilton
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Eber#5861 · Ruby#5861 · Stacy#5861 · Garner#5861 · Caldwell#5861 · Severin#5861 · Sebastiano#5861 · Newton#5861
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Wilton? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Wilton and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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