Brighton

Meaning of Brighton

Brighton, pronounced BRY-tən (/ˈbraɪtən/), enters the given-name lexicon as a transferred English place name, its etymology anchored in the Old English elements beorht, “bright,” and tūn, “settlement,” thus yielding the literal sense of “bright town.” Employed for both sexes in contemporary usage, the name retains a maritime resonance through its primary referent, the historic seaside resort on England’s south coast, yet it also carries broader Anglo-American connotations via cities from Massachusetts to Colorado, reinforcing its geographic neutrality. In United States vital-statistics data, Brighton has hovered in the low-to-mid 800s for newborns since the early 1990s, a pattern that signals modest but stable adoption rather than trend-driven volatility. Phonetically straightforward, semantically radiant, and geographically evocative, Brighton offers parents a modern, unisex option whose quietly optimistic meaning is buttressed by a lineage of place-based identity stretching across the Atlantic.