Princeton
- Pronunciation
- [Prin-ce-ton]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Principal One: First. The Rock Musician Prince.
- Origin
- English
About the Name Princeton
Princeton descends from the famous American university and town in Princeton, New Jersey — named in 1724 after British Prince William of Orange (who was made a member of the colony's governing council). The town and university name combines prince (Latin princeps, meaning "first" or "chief") with the popular -ton (homestead) ending.
The name's overwhelming cultural anchor is Princeton University (founded 1746 as the College of New Jersey, renamed in 1896) — one of the eight Ivy League universities and one of the most-prestigious institutions of higher education in the world. The Princeton brand has been continuously associated with American academic excellence and East Coast prestige for nearly three centuries.
Notable bearers include American singer Princeton (Jacob Anthony Perez, born 1993, the American singer of the boy band Mindless Behavior); American basketball player Princeton Onwas; and the contemporary fictional Princeton of various contemporary novels. The name's transition from place-name to American first name accelerated through the 1990s and 2000s, riding the broader American taste for distinctive aspirational concept-names alongside Royal and King. Princeton'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 has been driven primarily by African-American naming. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the in-built distinctive aspirational/elite-academic register, the popular three-syllable -ton ending family (Princeton, Easton, Paxton, Daxton), and the modern visual presence. Three flowing syllables, soft consonants, and tonal versatility from rural-American to upwardly-mobile-American. The name reads as distinctly contemporary American. Common nicknames Prince (the dominant short form, casual and warm — also a popular standalone name on its own — see separate entry), Pri, and the rare Cedi each carry distinct registers. International variants are minimal since the name's first-name use is essentially American.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Princeton
US Popularity History (2011–2025)
Annual US births named Princeton by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2017 with 793 boys named Princeton (boy rank #402 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #653 for boys (422 US births). That's 251 places below its 2017 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 Princeton 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 Princeton the strongest states are Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mississippi | #138 | 290 |
| 2 | Georgia | #211 | 566 |
| 3 | South Carolina | #212 | 257 |
| 4 | Hawaii | #227 | 25 |
| 5 | Louisiana | #227 | 248 |
| 6 | District of Columbia | #232 | 17 |
| 7 | Alabama | #245 | 244 |
| 8 | Arkansas | #305 | 119 |
| 9 | Tennessee | #307 | 269 |
| 10 | North Carolina | #358 | 296 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arizona | #861 | 38 |
| 2 | New Jersey | #839 | 46 |
| 3 | California | #807 | 257 |
| 4 | Washington | #785 | 66 |
| 5 | Massachusetts | #710 | 25 |
| 6 | New York | #643 | 229 |
| 7 | Pennsylvania | #617 | 117 |
| 8 | Maryland | #595 | 73 |
| 9 | Minnesota | #590 | 72 |
| 10 | Illinois | #510 | 192 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Princeton in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Princeton?
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 Princeton to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Princeton against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).