Mason
- Pronunciation
- [Ma-son]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Stone Worker
- Origin
- French
About the Name Mason
Mason is an occupational surname turned given name, derived from the Old French maçon (stoneworker, builder), which traces back to a Frankish/Germanic root — likely makjo meaning "maker" or "shaper." In medieval England the surname identified families whose ancestors worked stone for cathedrals, castles, and town walls — a respected trade that required apprenticeship, geometric knowledge, and membership in the medieval guild system that later evolved into modern Freemasonry.
Mason entered American naming as a surname-as-given-name in the late 19th century, but the name was unusual and almost exclusively reserved for boys whose mothers' maiden names were Mason. The shift to a true mainstream first name is a late-20th- and early-21st-century phenomenon, riding the broader American taste for surname-style names alongside Madison, Carter, Hudson, and Jackson. Mason climbed from outside the US top 200 in 1990 to the top 5 by 2011, and has held a top-15 rank since.
The name's appeal is its understated strength: two syllables, hard consonants, a built-in suggestion of craftsmanship and durability, and a tonal independence from any specific religious or ethnic register that makes it appealing across the modern American demographic spectrum. Notable bearers are largely modern: chef Mason Andrews (an early figure in American medical history), reality-TV personality Mason Disick (oldest grandchild of Kris Jenner). Common nicknames are Mase and the rarer Macey; the name has no significant pre-modern variants in other languages, since its widespread use as a first name is recent and English-specific.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Mason
US Popularity History (1997–2025)
Annual US births named Mason by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2011 with 19,528 boys named Mason (boy rank #2 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #39 for boys (6,291 US births). That's 37 places below its 2011 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 Mason 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 Mason the strongest states are Mississippi, West Virginia, Pennsylvania.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mississippi | #8 | 1,093 |
| 2 | West Virginia | #9 | 732 |
| 3 | Pennsylvania | #11 | 4,279 |
| 4 | North Carolina | #11 | 3,574 |
| 5 | Hawaii | #12 | 359 |
| 6 | South Carolina | #12 | 1,681 |
| 7 | Delaware | #13 | 342 |
| 8 | Alabama | #13 | 1,626 |
| 9 | Michigan | #13 | 2,970 |
| 10 | Maine | #13 | 409 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | District of Columbia | #51 | 208 |
| 2 | Wyoming | #48 | 103 |
| 3 | Texas | #42 | 7,389 |
| 4 | Nebraska | #39 | 524 |
| 5 | South Dakota | #37 | 234 |
| 6 | California | #35 | 9,545 |
| 7 | North Dakota | #35 | 241 |
| 8 | Utah | #33 | 976 |
| 9 | Arizona | #33 | 1,692 |
| 10 | Colorado | #31 | 1,362 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Mason in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Famous People Named Mason
1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Mason.
- Mason Andrews is a prominent name in the history of medical science.
Looking for names like Mason?
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 Mason to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Mason 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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