girls:
1.1k births since 1995
#4632 (19th percentile)
boys:
1.4k births since 1917
#3269 (29th percentile)
overall:
2.4k births since 1917
#5387 (30th percentile)
The name Payson is the #5,387 most popular name of all time in the U.S. on a gender-neutral basis, with a total of 2,440 recorded births since 1917. This represents the 30.4% percentile of name popularity (more popular than 30.4% of all names). For boys, it ranks #3,269 (28.7% percentile) for all time with 1,356 births since 1917. For girls, it ranks #4,632 (18.9% percentile) for all time with 1,084 births since 1995.
Payson first appeared in U.S. birth records in 1917 (1917 for boys and 1995 for girls). Birth data for Payson is available in 39 out of the 107 years between 1917 and 2023 (39 years for boys and 25 years for girls). The Social Security Administration only reports birth data for years in which the name was given to at least five children of the same gender.
The name Payson has been given to both genders, with a slight preference for boys (55.6% of all recorded births). In 2023, 44.2% of babies named Payson were boys. Interestingly, until around 2012, the name was more popular for boys (68.0% boys from 1917 to 2011), but since then it has been more commonly used for girls (52.8% girls from 2012 to 2023).
For boys, Payson reached its peak popularity in 2015, achieving the 8.1% percentile (ranked #832) with 38 births per million. The name was most common in 2015, with 38 births per million (ranked 8.1% percentile). Since reaching a high point around 2018, the popularity of this name for boys has been declining. Currently, Payson ranks #870 for boys (4.5% percentile) with 25 births per million, which is 65.8% of its peak share of births.
For girls, Payson reached its peak popularity in 2011, achieving the 11.8% percentile (ranked #829) with 60 births per million. The name was most common in 2011, with 60 births per million (ranked 11.8% percentile). Since reaching a low point around 2020, the popularity of this name for girls has been increasing. Currently, Payson ranks #894 for girls (5.6% percentile) with 33 births per million, which is 55.4% of its peak share of births.
This chart shows the total number of births per million babies in each year for the name "Payson".
These names exclude other spelling variations of this name. View all variations of Payson.
These similar-looking names have spellings that are closest to the spelling of "Payson", in the sense that there are the fewest number of letter differences between the two spellings. These names exclude other spelling variations of this name. View all variations of Payson.
Our model has identified 2 different pronunciations for the name Payson. Click the play button under each pronunciation to hear it spoken aloud.
Our model is 82.2% confident that Payson is pronounced as PAY-suhn, which has 2 syllables. The next most likely pronunciation is PAY-zuhn, at 17.8% confidence, with 2 syllables.
If none of the pronunciations above sound right to you, could you please check whether any of these related pronunciations should be applied to the name Payson? These are pronunciations that other similar names use, but which are not currently associated with Payson. If you think any of these are valid pronunciations for Payson, please vote using the thumbs up button.
Our confidence scores estimate the likelihood that a particular pronunciation is the most correct for a given name spelling. These scores are derived from pronunciation dictionaries, manual verification, your feedback, and a fine-tuned large language model trained to generate name pronunciations.
For any given spelling, confidence scores across all identified pronunciations sum to 100%. However, these scores don't account for the possibility of valid pronunciations that our model hasn't identified.
The raw pronunciations shown (like P EY1 S AH0 N) use the ARPAbet phoneme system, a standardized way to represent English speech sounds. Each symbol represents a distinct sound in American English. Visit the ARPAbet Wikipedia page to learn more about these phonetic symbols.
Pronunciation audio is generated by an open source text to speech model that has been customized to adhere to pronunciations provided in ARPAbet format, but sometimes pronunciations that differ subtly will sound identical, particularly if the only difference is the level of emphasis on a syllable or a single vowel sound.
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