Houston
- Pronunciation
- [Hous-ton]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- From Hugh's Town. Place-Name And Surname. American West Texan General Sam Houston. A City In Texas USA.
- Origin
- Scottish
About the Name Houston
Houston is a Scottish place-name and surname meaning "from Hugh's town," combining the personal name Hugh with the Old English tun, "settlement" or "enclosure." In the United States it carries strong associations with the Texan general and statesman Sam Houston and with the great Texas city named in his honor, giving it a distinctly American, pioneering resonance. Pronounced Hous-ton, its two firm syllables read as bold and place-rooted, a name that feels rugged, expansive, and full of frontier spirit.
Houston first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 2000 and has charted continuously through 2024, a long and steady run without a single missed year. It reached its best national rank of #627 in 2021 and has accumulated 6,740 births across its top-1000 years. Its recent showings hold steady, ranking #696 in 2022, #689 in 2023, and #702 in 2024 — a name maintaining a consistent presence in the upper-middle of the chart rather than spiking or fading, which speaks to its durable, established appeal.
The name's appeal is its rugged, place-name character and its vivid evocations of Texas, the American West, and a spirit of independence and ambition. It reads as strong, distinctive, and grounded, with a clear geographic identity that few first names carry so naturally. For parents drawn to bold place-names, Houston offers a confident, all-American choice with real historical weight behind it.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Houston
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Houston by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2021 with 439 boys named Houston (boy rank #627 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #675 for boys (402 US births). That's 48 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.
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Where in the US Is Houston 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 Houston the strongest states are Alabama, Tennessee, West Virginia.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alabama | #249 | 204 |
| 2 | Tennessee | #282 | 277 |
| 3 | West Virginia | #295 | 26 |
| 4 | Mississippi | #315 | 93 |
| 5 | Kentucky | #332 | 143 |
| 6 | Arkansas | #387 | 92 |
| 7 | Missouri | #469 | 121 |
| 8 | Oklahoma | #473 | 94 |
| 9 | Utah | #480 | 86 |
| 10 | South Carolina | #487 | 89 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Houston in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Houston?
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 Houston to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Houston 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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