Britton
Given to 8,293 babies in the United States, 1890 to 2025. Every figure below is a count of birth registrations, not an estimate.
By register
By decade, every selected register together
Asked and held nothing for this name: England and Wales (1996–2025), Scotland (1974–2025), Northern Ireland (1997–2025), Ireland (1964–2025), Norway (1945–2025), Sweden (1998–2022), France (1900–2023), Belgium (2016–2025), Austria (1984–2025), Switzerland (2000–2025), Poland (2000–2025), Argentina (2012–2024), Finland (living citizens, 2026), Greenland (2002–2025). That is not a count of nought — each of those registers was searched and does not carry this spelling. Every one withholds its smallest counts, on its own rule, so a name can be real there and still absent from what they publish.
Narrow these tables
The sum at the top of each table adds counts that were not made on the same rule — the Americans publish a name only where five or more babies were given it in a year, ONS redact any name given to two or fewer in total, Finland counts living citizens rather than births. It is an indication of how widely the name is recorded, not a measurement of how many people have it.
How it is said
bɹˈɪtən
From the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, free for any use. The symbols are IPA, converted from CMU's notation by the published correspondence. Two things in that conversion are ours rather than theirs: an unstressed vowel is written as a schwa, and the stress mark sits before the stressed vowel rather than at the start of its syllable — CMU record no syllable boundaries, so placing it properly would mean guessing where the syllables fall.
Where these numbers come from
United States, 1880 to 2025
As a girl's name, Britton was registered 1,956 times in the United States between 1960 and 2025, most often in the 2010s.
As a boy's name, Britton was registered 6,337 times in the United States between 1890 and 2025, most often in the 2000s.
England and Wales
Not in this register. Britton does not appear in the English and Welsh figures for 1996 to 2025. ONS withhold any name given to two or fewer babies in total, so this means the name was rare there rather than unknown.
Scotland
Not in this register. Britton does not appear in the Scottish figures for 1974 to 2025. NRS suppress any name given to two or fewer babies in a year, so this means the name was rare there rather than unknown.
Northern Ireland
Not in this register. Britton does not appear in the Northern Irish figures for 1997 to 2025. NISRA print every name given to a baby registered there, so an absence here means the name does not appear at all between 1997 and 2025.
Ireland
Not in this register. Britton does not appear in the Irish figures for 1964 to 2025. The CSO list a name once it has reached three babies in any single year, so this means the name never did.
Norway
Not in this register. Britton does not appear in the Norwegian figures for 1945 to 2025. SSB list only names used by at least two hundred people in the previous year, so an absence here usually means the name was never that common in Norway rather than never used.
Sweden
Not in this register. Britton does not appear in the Swedish figures for 1998 to 2022. SCB published a name only where at least two babies of that sex were given it, and at least ten before 2004, so this means the name never cleared that bar.
France
Not in this register. Britton does not appear in the French figures for 1900 to 2023. Insee list a name individually only where it was given at least 20 times to one sex, over 1900-1945 or over 1946-2023; rarer names are pooled into a single record they call _PRENOMS_RARES. So this means the name was rare there rather than unknown.
Belgium
Not in this register. Britton does not appear in the Belgian figures for 2016 to 2025. Statbel publish a figure only where at least five babies in a single municipality were given the name, so this means it never reached five in any one town — not that no Belgian child has it.
Austria
Not in this register. Britton does not appear in the Austrian figures for 1984 to 2025. Statistik Austria suppress no name and no figure, so unlike every other register here this means the name was not given to a baby registered in Austria, rather than that it was given too few times to print.
Switzerland
Not in this register. Britton does not appear in the Swiss figures for 2000 to 2025. the Federal Statistical Office publish a fixed list of first names and do not say how a name gets onto it. So this may mean the name was never given in Switzerland, or only that it is not on that list.
Poland
Not in this register. Britton does not appear in the Polish figures for 2000 to 2025. the Ministry left out any name given fewer than five times in a year up to 2012, and fewer than two from 2013. So an absence in the early years is a weaker statement than an absence in the later ones.
Canada, 1991 to 2024
83 babies, from a register that begins in 1991. Its decades cannot be compared with the American ones, which reach back to 1880: where the two tables above put them in the same row, they are counting different lengths of record.
Source: Statistics Canada, table 17-10-0147-01. Adapted from Statistics Canada, First names at birth by sex at birth, 1991–2024. This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product. The registers withhold small counts on different rules — Statistics Canada withhold any name given to fewer than five babies in a year, and publish no single-letter name — the same bar as the Americans, set by a different authority, and the Americans hide one given to fewer than five in a year — so a name in one table and not another may only have met different thresholds.
Canada is usually said not to have a national name register, because births are registered province by province and most published lists are provincial top tens stitched together. Statistics Canada do assemble them: this is one table for the whole country, built from the Canadian Vital Statistics birth database together with Retraite Québec’s list of names.
Argentina
Not in this register. Britton does not appear in the Argentine figures for 2012 to 2024. RENAPER publish a figure only where a name was given to at least two people, so this means it was rarer than that, or was given only outside 2012–2024.
Finland
Not in this register. Britton does not appear in the Finnish figures at all. DVV publish a name only where at least five living Finnish citizens hold it, so this means fewer than five do — not that no Finn was ever given it.
Greenland
Not in this register. Britton does not appear in the Greenlandic figures for 2002 to 2025. Statistics Greenland suppress nothing, so — as with Austria — this means no resident of Greenland born since 2002 has the name, rather than that it was too rare to print.
The Social Security Administration publish the name on every United States birth registration from 1880 onward, and dedicate the data to the public domain under CC0. This page adds nothing to it: the counts are theirs, grouped by decade.
One gap, and it matters here more than anywhere. SSA publish a name only where five or more babies were given it in a year. A name you cannot find is not a name nobody used — it is a name used four times or fewer, and no site built on this data can see it.
The pronunciation above comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which covers some names and not others. Meanings are not here yet. When they arrive they will come from named scholarship old enough to be out of copyright, and where two authorities disagree the page will say so rather than picking one.