Layton
- Pronunciation
- [Lay-ton]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- From The Meadow Farm
- Origin
- English
About the Name Layton
Layton descends from the Old English place-name meaning "meadow farm" or "settlement near a leek garden" — composed of leac (leek) plus tun (homestead, settlement). The name first appears as an English surname referring to those from such places.
The name has additional video-game cultural anchoring through the iconic Professor Layton Nintendo DS puzzle game franchise (2007–present, the iconic Japanese video-game character whose iconic top-hatted English gentleman adventurer made the name iconic in gaming culture). Notable bearers include American basketball player Layton Jones; the contemporary fictional Layton of various contemporary novels; and various contemporary American social media influencers.
The name's transition from surname to American first name accelerated through the 2000s and 2010s, riding the broader American taste for surname-style first names with the popular -ton ending alongside Easton, Paxton, and Brixton. Layton's American climb is recent: the name climbed from outside the US top 1000 in 2010 to the US top 300 boys' rank by 2018 and the top 300 since. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the surname-style sophistication, the popular two-syllable -ton ending family (Layton, Easton, Peyton, Brixton), and the modern visual presence. 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 Lay (the dominant short form, casual and warm), Lae, and the rare Ton each carry distinct registers; the alternate spellings Layton, Laton, and Leyton have their own SSA tracking. International forms include the original Old English leac + tun.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Layton
US Popularity History (2001–2025)
Annual US births named Layton by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2015 with 528 boys named Layton (boy rank #541 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #714 for boys (377 US births). That's 173 places below its 2015 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.
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Where in the US Is Layton 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 Layton the strongest states are South Dakota, West Virginia, Arkansas.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | South Dakota | #209 | 37 |
| 2 | West Virginia | #295 | 36 |
| 3 | Arkansas | #360 | 92 |
| 4 | Louisiana | #363 | 144 |
| 5 | Oklahoma | #382 | 97 |
| 6 | Mississippi | #382 | 85 |
| 7 | Nebraska | #386 | 20 |
| 8 | Iowa | #387 | 87 |
| 9 | Missouri | #392 | 150 |
| 10 | Kentucky | #413 | 107 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Illinois | #808 | 97 |
| 2 | Arizona | #759 | 54 |
| 3 | Washington | #754 | 50 |
| 4 | Florida | #725 | 184 |
| 5 | Pennsylvania | #703 | 113 |
| 6 | Michigan | #693 | 92 |
| 7 | Minnesota | #647 | 57 |
| 8 | Maryland | #640 | 22 |
| 9 | Oregon | #617 | 22 |
| 10 | Texas | #615 | 431 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Layton in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Layton?
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 Layton to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Layton against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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