Maxwell
Maxwell is a boy's name that peaked in 2014, when it was the 107th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 189th. About 103,000 Maxwells are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 17.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Maxwell boys named Maxwell
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 109,467
- Estimated living today
- 103,000
- Median age today
- 17
- Peak year
- 2014
- Best rank
- 107th
- Rank in 2025
- 189th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 735 / 108,732
How old the living Maxwells are
born that year still alive today
Of the 109,467 babies given the name since 1880, about 103,000 are alive — 95 in every hundred. Roughly 52,000 of them are children and 930 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2008 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin a surname
From an earlier form Mackeswell, meaning "Mack's well or spring", from Old English welle (“well”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Maxwells
- Maxwell (born 1981)Brazilian footballer
- George Maxwell Richards (1931–2018)President of Trinidad and Tobago
- Maxwell Anderson (1888–1959)American playwright and writer
- Peter Maxwell Davies (1934–2016)English composer and conductor
- Maxwell D. Taylor (1901–1987)American military officer and diplomat
- Maxwell Jacob Friedman (born 1996)American professional wrestler
- Maxwell Jenkins (born 2005)American actor
- Maxwell Caulfield (born 1959)British actor
People named Maxwell with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Maxwell is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Maxwell is most concentrated in Utah (2.3×), Minnesota (2.2×), New Hampshire (2.1×), Washington (1.8×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2014
The most popular boys’ names the year Maxwell peaked:
Maxwell elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales boys | Maxwell | 10,280 | 114th |
| Scotland boys | Maxwell | 707 | 150th |
| France boys | Maxwell | 290 | 1,644th |
| New Zealand boys | Maxwell | 172 | 78th |
| Ireland boys | Maxwell | 169 | 301st |
| Switzerland boys | Maxwell | 70 | 710th |
| Northern Ireland boys | Maxwell | 56 | 219th |
| Poland boys | Maxwell | 52 birth registrations | 367th |
| Belgium boys | Maxwell | 51 | 829th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Maxwell: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | Maxwell | 47 | 0.004% | 769th |
| French boys | Switzerland | Maxwell | 20 | 0.005% | 436th |
| Italian boys | Switzerland | Maxwell | 3 | 0.005% | 195th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
Maxwell: rank by region
In 2017, Maxwell was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Maxwell | 772 | 6 |
In 2023, Maxwell was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Maxwell | 10 | 1 |
In 2025, Maxwell was given 2 times or more in 1 region of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mazowieckie | Maxwell | 312 | 2 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Maxwell by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 2 | 584th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Maxwell among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland boys | Maxwell | 56 | 98 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Related names
Maxwell against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.