Dalton
A masculine name of English origin associated with a place meaning "valley town".
Name Census estimates that about 79,488 living Americans carry the first name Dalton. It sits at #432 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It is a predominantly male name (99.5% of registrations). The average person named Dalton today is around 26 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Dalton births was 1998 (4,588 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Dalton. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Dalton with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Dalton is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 426 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
79K
~ 1 in 4,312 Americans
Peak year
1998
4,588 babies that year
Average age
26
years old
2024 SSA rank
#432
Tracked since 1881
Census
Dalton in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 68,878 people with the first name Dalton, which placed it at #741 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#741
National first-name rank
People counted
69K
68,878 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
22.8
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
87.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Dalton
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Dalton is White at 87.9%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (4.2%) and Hispanic (3.4%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Dalton described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Dalton at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White87.9% · 60,561
- Two or more races4.2% · 2,872
- Hispanic or Latino3.4% · 2,316
- Black or African American2.7% · 1,879
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.2% · 816
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.6% · 434
Gender
Gender distribution for Dalton
Out of the 85,429 babies given the name Dalton since 1880, 99.5% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Dalton as a male name
- Ranked #432 in 2024
- 729 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1998 (4,563 births)
Dalton as a female name
- Ranked #13,831 in 2024
- 6 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2004 (32 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Dalton appears almost entirely male. Of the 68,878 people counted with this name, 99.4% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Dalton: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Dalton from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 36,168 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1990s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Dalton by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Dalton during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Daltons live
The SSA's state-level files cover 50 states and territories. Texas, Florida, North Carolina recorded the most babies named Dalton, while Rhode Island, Vermont, Hawaii recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,616 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Dalton
The name Dalton has its origins in the ancient Anglo-Saxon culture and language. It is derived from the Old English words "dæl" meaning "valley" and "tun" meaning "enclosure" or "settlement". The name likely referred to someone who lived in a valley settlement or a secluded town.
One of the earliest recorded uses of the name Dalton can be found in the Domesday Book, a great survey of England commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1086. The Domesday Book mentions several places named Dalton, indicating that the name was already in use as a place name by the 11th century.
In the Middle Ages, the name Dalton became a common surname in England, particularly in the northern counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire. However, it was also used as a given name, though less frequently.
One of the earliest recorded individuals with the given name Dalton was Dalton of Lonsdale, a 12th-century English nobleman who lived in the village of Lonsdale, Lancashire. He is mentioned in several historical records from that period.
Another notable bearer of the name Dalton was John Dalton, the famous English chemist, meteorologist, and physicist who lived from 1766 to 1844. He is best known for his pioneering work in the development of atomic theory and the study of color blindness, which he himself suffered from.
In the 19th century, Dalton was also the given name of Dalton Trumbo, an American novelist and screenwriter who was born in 1905 and died in 1976. He is renowned for his work on films such as "Roman Holiday" and "Spartacus", and for his struggle against the Hollywood blacklist during the McCarthy era.
Dalton Caldwell, an American entrepreneur and software developer, is another notable bearer of the name. He was born in 1978 and is known for co-founding the online music service Imeem and the app development platform App.net.
Finally, Dalton Philips is the name of a British businessman and former CEO of Morrisons, one of the largest supermarket chains in the United Kingdom. He was born in 1968 and served as the CEO of Morrisons from 2010 to 2015.
People
Dalton + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Dalton as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with D
Other first names starting with D with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Dalton: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Dalton?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 79,488 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Dalton going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 4,312 US residents.
Is Dalton a common name?
We classify Dalton as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 85,429 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Dalton most popular?
The single biggest year for Dalton was 1998, when 4,588 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Dalton is about 26 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Dalton in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 68,878 people with the name Dalton, or 22.81 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #741 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Dalton in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Dalton?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Dalton appears almost entirely male. Of the 68,878 people counted with this name, 99.4% were male and only a very small share were female. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Dalton?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Dalton is White at 87.9%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (4.2%) and Hispanic (3.4%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Dalton most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Dalton in the 2020 Census, accounting for 87.9% (60,561 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Dalton in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Dalton a male name?
Yes, 99.5% of people registered as Dalton in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Dalton still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Dalton in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Dalton can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How common is the name Dalton?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.