Preston

87,761 people in America carry this name — ranked #605 of 923.

A name with a settled sense and a settled sound.

Say it PREHS tuhn

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

P R EH1 S T AH0 N — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 87,761 2020 Census
  • Rank #605 Familiar
  • Per 100,000 29.1 about 1 in 3,777 people
  • As a surname 45,056 ranked #753 the other way round

The meaning and origin of Preston

Reads literally as “a town in Lancashire, England”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

Preston name popularity by year

117,360 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 2007, with 3,811 of them.

80 90 00 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 00s 10 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 2000s. It has been given less often of late.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

Middle names that fit Preston

Two syllables sit with almost anything — the join matters more than the length.

Better avoided

  • Preston Paul — same opening
  • Preston Nicholas — runs together
  • Preston Patrick — same opening

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

On the way up

Preston is given more often now than it was a generation ago. Most names move the other way.

Boys or girls: who is called Preston?

99.4% men
531 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

Names with the same rhythm as Preston

Ends on the same sound

Same rhythm — 2 syllables, stress on the first

Matched on phonemes, not spelling, so the lists follow the ear rather than the page.

Who carries it today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 71.8%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 12.1%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 5.9%
  • Two or more races — 5.7%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 3.2%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 1.2%

Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.

Where in America Preston is thickest on the ground

In Utah the name is given 2.6 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Utah ×2.6
  • Idaho ×2.0
  • Oklahoma ×1.9
  • Hawaii ×1.8
  • North Dakota ×1.8

Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.

Try it Adult Height

Open Adult Height on its own page

Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
  • Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers