New Baby Name

Cotton

Boy · English

Cotton

Say it: KOT-un

Try it with your surname

Meaning

An English surname, from places named from Old English cotum 'at the cottages'.

Likelythe main view, with some doubt.

Given to Cotton Mather from his maternal grandfather John Cotton, an example of the Puritan use of family surnames.

Its wave through time

Rare in the records

In the United States

0510152018801900192019401960198020002020Peak 2015per million babies of that sex
  • 453 babies given this name since 1918
  • At its height in 2015, about 1 in 61,700 boys
  • 16 babies in 2020

Through the ages

  1. The Colonial Americas1500 to 1800

Used by

American

Famous bearers

  • Cotton Mather, Puritan minister

Names worth a look

Where this comes from

  • Colonial records of the Americas
  • Puritan church and town records of England and New England
  • United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source

Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.

Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.