Clayton
loc · Latin script
Meaning: person from Clayton; from numerous English place-names meaning ‘farmstead on clayey soil’
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/kleɪtən/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Clayton is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 3.4K(inferred from the name graph)
- AUAustralia≈1 in 4.5K
- USUnited States1 in 5.9K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 529 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.4K (inferred from the name graph)
≈250,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
French Guiana, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
person from Clayton; from numerous English place-names meaning ‘farmstead on clayey soil’
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Clayton, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Clayton counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | ≈250,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.5K | — | Clayton | 20 |
| US United States | 56,638 | 1 in 5.9K | 91K | Clayton | 529 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈20,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.4K | 5 | Clayton | 272 |
| CA Canada | ≈5,700 est. | ≈1 in 6.6K | 11 | Clayton | 233 |
| AU Australia | ≈5,600 est. | ≈1 in 4.5K | 48 | Clayton | 182 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈1,400 est. | ≈1 in 3.6K | 10 | Clayton | 104 |
| GF French Guiana | ≈150 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | 5 | — | — |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: QLD BDM — Top 100 Baby Names Queensland (1960–present); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present); INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (births by department), dpt 973 (French Guiana). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Clayton is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, from Clayton in Lancashire, Staffordshire, Sussex, and West Riding of Yorkshire; first attested Jordan de Claiton a1191
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
Especially U.S.: transferred use of the surname, originally a local name from any of the several places in England (for example, in Lancs., Staffs., Sussex, and W. Yorks.) named with Old English clég ‘clay’ + tan ‘enclosure’, ‘settlement’.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, places, for example in Lancs., Staffs., Sussex, and W Yorks., so called from OE clceg clay + tun enclosure, settlement.
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
In English, A placename:
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, Old English; town on clay land
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Joshua Claytonb. 1744USAmerican politician (1744-1798)
- John M. Claytonb. 1796USAmerican lawyer and politician (1796–1856)
- Powell Claytonb. 1833USAmerican politician (1833-1914)
- Harold Clayton Ureyb. 1893USAmerican physical chemist (1893-1981)
- Jack Claytonb. 1921GBBritish film director and producer (1921–1995)
- Adam Claytonb. 1960GBIrish rock musician, bass player of U2
- John Mayerb. 1977USnot in their usual nameAmerican musician (born 1977)
- Jamie Claytonb. 1978USAmerican actress and model (born 1978)
- David Leeb. 1983USnot in their usual nameAmerican basketball player (born 1983)
- David Henrieb. 1989USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 73 sources across 38 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 57K | #595 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 55K | #548 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 54K | #611 |
Reference works 5
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Clayton mean, and where does it come from?
- person from Clayton; from numerous English place-names meaning ‘farmstead on clayey soil’ Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- In which country does Clayton have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 254 thousand people named Clayton in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled clayton.
- How do you pronounce Clayton?
- A machine transcription gives /kleɪtən/ (IPA) for English.
- How common is the name Clayton?
- In the United States, the national register counted 56,638 people named Clayton in 2010, about 1 in 5.9 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Clayton?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/claytonThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Clayton”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.