Graeson
A masculine name with a blend of Greek origins meaning "watchful" or "vigilant".
Name Census estimates that about 799 living Americans carry the first name Graeson. It is a predominantly male name (98.1% of registrations). The average person named Graeson today is around 13 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Graeson births was 2011 (51 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Graeson. 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 Graeson with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
799
~ 1 in 428,979 Americans
Peak year
2011
51 babies that year
Average age
13
years old
2024 SSA rank
#4,339
Tracked since 1990
Census
Graeson in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 654 people with the first name Graeson, which placed it at #17,030 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
#17,030
National first-name rank
People counted
654
654 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
75.5% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Graeson
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Graeson is White at 75.5%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (8.1%) and Hispanic (7.8%). 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 Graeson 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 Graeson at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White75.5% · 494
- Two or more races8.1% · 53
- Hispanic or Latino7.8% · 51
- Black or African American6.0% · 39
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.0% · 13
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.6% · 4
Gender
Gender distribution for Graeson
Graeson leans heavily male at 98.1% of total registrations, but 15 girls have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Graeson as a male name
- Ranked #4,339 in 2024
- 24 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2011 (51 births)
Graeson as a female name
- Ranked #16,342 in 2002
- 5 female births in 2002
- Peak: 1999 (5 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Graeson leans strongly male. 589 people counted with this name were male (91.3%), compared with 56 female bearers (8.7%).
Popularity
Graeson: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Graeson from the 1990s through to the 2020s, spanning 4 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 439 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Graeson remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Graeson 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 Graeson during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Graesons live
The SSA's state-level files cover 7 states and territories. Texas, California, Pennsylvania recorded the most babies named Graeson, while Ohio, New York, Colorado recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 9 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Graeson
The name Graeson is a modern English variant of the traditional Scottish surname Grayson, which itself derives from the ancient Anglo-Saxon name "Greyson" or "Greysun." The name can be traced back to the 11th century in England, where it was originally a descriptive surname referring to someone with gray hair or a grayish complexion.
The root of the name is the Old English word "græg," meaning "gray" or "gray-haired." This word is closely related to the Old Norse "grár" and the Old High German "grāo," all of which share the same Proto-Germanic origin. The suffix "-son" simply denotes "son of," indicating that the original bearer was the son of someone with gray hair or a grayish appearance.
While the name Graeson itself does not appear in ancient texts or historical records, its predecessor Grayson has a long and rich history in the British Isles. One of the earliest recorded instances is that of Sir Adam de Grayson, a 13th-century English knight who fought in the Scottish Wars of Independence.
Notably, the name Grayson was also associated with the prominent Grayson family of Lancashire, England. Sir Thomas Grayson (c. 1543-1611) was a wealthy landowner and Member of Parliament during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. His son, Sir Radcliffe Grayson (c. 1570-1647), was a prominent Royalist during the English Civil War.
In Scotland, the name Graeson is closely linked to the Clan Gunn, one of the oldest and most influential clans in the Highlands. The Clan Gunn can trace its roots back to the 12th century and the Norse warrior Gunni, whose descendants adopted the surname Gunn or Gunson, which later evolved into Grayson and its variants.
Another notable figure was Sir Grayson Elliot (1835-1928), a British colonial administrator and diplomat who served as Governor of the Windward Islands and British Guiana (now Guyana) in the late 19th century.
More recently, the name Graeson has been used by several public figures, including Graeson Studdard (born 1995), an American singer-songwriter and contestant on the reality TV show The Voice, and Graeson Tash (born 1992), an Australian rules football player for the Adelaide Crows.
People
Graeson + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Graeson as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with G
Other first names starting with G with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Graeson: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Graeson?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 799 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Graeson 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 428,979 US residents.
Is Graeson a common name?
We classify Graeson as "Very Rare". It ranks above 88.6% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 806 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Graeson most popular?
The single biggest year for Graeson was 2011, when 51 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Graeson is about 13 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Graeson in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 654 people with the name Graeson, or 0.22 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #17,030 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 Graeson 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 Graeson?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Graeson leans strongly male. 589 people counted with this name were male (91.3%), compared with 56 female bearers (8.7%). 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 Graeson?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Graeson is White at 75.5%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (8.1%) and Hispanic (7.8%). 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 Graeson most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Graeson in the 2020 Census, accounting for 75.5% (494 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 Graeson in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Graeson a male name?
Yes, 98.1% of people registered as Graeson 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 Graeson still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Graeson 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 Graeson 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 many people are named Graeson?
Our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers how many people have the name Graeson at a glance, with the living-bearer count up front.