Lawson
- Pronunciation
- [Law-son]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Son Of Law Or Lawrence
- Origin
- English
About the Name Lawson
Lawson descends from the Old English patronymic surname meaning "son of Law" or "son of Lawrence" — Law being a medieval English short form of Lawrence (see separate entry on Lawrence for the Latin Laurentius etymology meaning "from Laurentum," an ancient city in Latium famous for its laurel trees). The surname appears in English records continuously since the medieval period.
Notable bearers include British rock band Lawson (formed 2009, anchoring the name in 21st-century British music memory); American basketball player Kawhi Lawson; and the iconic American Western-novel character of various 19th and 20th-century American Western fiction.
The name's transition from surname to American first name accelerated through the 1990s and 2000s, riding the broader American taste for surname-style first names with the popular -son ending alongside Mason, Hudson, Jaxon, and Jackson. Lawson's American climb is recent: the name climbed from outside the US top 1000 in 2000 to the US top 300 boys' rank by 2014 and the top 300 since. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the surname-style sophistication, the in-built Lawrence/Saint Lawrence classical pedigree, and the popular two-syllable -son ending family. Two firm syllables, soft consonants, and tonal versatility from rural-American to upwardly-mobile-American. The name reads as both classical-Anglo-Saxon and contemporary American. Common nicknames Law (the dominant short form, casual and warm) and the rare Sonny each carry distinct registers; the alternate spellings Lawson and Lauson have their own SSA tracking. International variants are minimal since the name's first-name use is essentially American; the related Lawrence/Laurentius family provides the etymological core.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Lawson
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Lawson by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2021 with 896 boys named Lawson (boy rank #364 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #381 for boys (830 US births). That's 17 places below its 2021 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
Paste the snippet below on any HTML page. Includes a credit link back to 9BabyNames — please keep it intact.
Where in the US Is Lawson Most Popular?
Average boy-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Lawson the strongest states are Mississippi, Alabama, South Dakota.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mississippi | #145 | 227 |
| 2 | Alabama | #154 | 351 |
| 3 | South Dakota | #162 | 64 |
| 4 | Arkansas | #187 | 189 |
| 5 | Louisiana | #204 | 266 |
| 6 | Montana | #225 | 23 |
| 7 | South Carolina | #227 | 210 |
| 8 | North Carolina | #232 | 476 |
| 9 | North Dakota | #233 | 29 |
| 10 | Kansas | #237 | 152 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New York | #794 | 121 |
| 2 | Arizona | #730 | 65 |
| 3 | Massachusetts | #693 | 44 |
| 4 | Washington | #613 | 105 |
| 5 | Illinois | #611 | 161 |
| 6 | Utah | #603 | 55 |
| 7 | Maryland | #594 | 53 |
| 8 | Oregon | #583 | 37 |
| 9 | Colorado | #535 | 99 |
| 10 | Connecticut | #531 | 15 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Lawson in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Lawson?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Lawson to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Lawson against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
Lawson Baby Name Ideas
- Baby Names for Last Names Starting With L: Keep the Repeated L Clear Without Losing Flow
- Best Middle Names for Ella: Build Space After the Double L and Open-A Ending
- Baby Names for Last Names With First-Syllable Stress: Building Rhythm After a Strong Opening Beat
- Top 1000 Most Popular Boy Names In U.S. Of 2015
- Naming Your Babies After Famous Rivers In The World
- Sounding Twin Baby Names That Rhyming