Given name & surname
Horton
“from the gray town”
Horton is used as a given name and a surname. One English interpretation is “from the gray town.”
Meaning & origin
What it means
One English interpretation is “from the gray town.”
Where it comes from
An origin associated with this spelling is English.
How it developed
From Old English horh (“mud, slime”), from Old English heorot (“stag, hart”).
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1888. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Horton through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 616
- 616 boys · 0 girls
- Most popular year
- 1922
- 28 babies
- 2025
- 0
- Outside the ranked list
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- —
- Too few births to compare
By the numbers
The most recent published U.S. birth count for boys is 5 in 2012. Later missing counts do not mean the name went unused. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 227 as a first name in 2020; 80,807 as a surname in 2020.
From Social Security birth records and U.S. Census name counts for this exact spelling. Other spellings are counted separately.
Horton’s family of names
Horton has a related form in Hortan. Horton has a related form in Horten. Horton has a related form in Hortin.
The ring: nicknames and forms.
Nicknames & forms 5
Diminutives, pet forms, short forms and variants used alongside the name.
People named Horton
- Horton Smithprofessional golfer (1908-1963)
- Horton H. Hobbs Jr.American taxonomist and carcinologist (1914–1994)
Listed by how widely each person is written about, which says nothing about the name itself.
Similar names
If you love Horton, these share its style, era, origin or sound, from outside its own family.
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