In 2022, for the first time ever, enough American parents named their baby boys Dutton to put the name in the national top 1,000.
It came in at No. 836, and it belongs to a ranch family that exists only on television.
Dutton is one piece of a bigger wave. Rebekah Wahlberg, a baby-name trends specialist at BabyCenter, told Reader’s Digest that country music and Western TV shows have helped fuel interest in names with a Western feel. Dutton has emerged as one example, ranking among the fastest-rising names on the Social Security Administration’s list.
On the show, the Duttons own one of the largest ranches in the country, with Kevin Costner playing the man at the head of the family, and season after season they fight to keep their Montana land. Real parents heard it and gave it to their sons.
A family name is the heart of that show, and it turned out to be the part people wanted to keep.
Rip and Kayce Climbed the Charts After Yellowstone Hit Its Peak
Yellowstone premiered in 2018 and started hitting its peak popularity in 2021, and names inspired by the show reached new levels on the Social Security charts in 2022 and 2023. When the fifth season premiered, almost 16 million people watched that night on the Paramount Network.
Two of the fan favorites are Kayce Dutton, played by Luke Grimes, and Rip Wheeler, played by Cole Hauser. Kayce hit No. 586 for boys in 2022 and later reached No. 459.
Rip has climbed too. A study by Organicbabyformula.com of the top 100 shows on Rotten Tomatoes from 2020 through 2022 found that the number of babies named Rip has increased by more than 2,300% since 2018.
Dutton also fits a pattern Wahlberg has been watching. Last names have a gender-neutral appeal, she said, which might explain why they keep turning up as first names, and the custom is far older than television.
“This practice has been recorded for centuries as a way to display the connection of two powerful families who were united through marriage,” she said.
Two powerful families tied together by a name sounds a lot like the Duttons.
The Name Walker Belongs to a Grammy-Winning Country Singer on Yellowstone
Walker shows how closely the show and country music are tied. The name sat at No. 85 in 2023, and Walker and Oakley, two more last names turned first names, both broke into the BabyCenter top 100 for the first time in 2024.
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“…they don’t show any sign of leaving soon,” Wahlberg said.
On screen, Walker is played by Ryan Bingham, a Grammy-winning singer from New Mexico and West Texas, and in Season 4 his character plays Bingham’s own song “Hallelujah” for Beth Dutton. Bingham told Taste of Country how he sees the man.
“I think he is a loyal guy,” he said.
Loyal is a good word for parents to hand a little boy.
Country Music Is Putting Names Like Cash and Winona on Birth Certificates
The show is only part of the story. Country-inspired names like Cash and Conway are appearing on birth certificates, and any country fan hears Johnny Cash and Conway Twitty in them. Winona and Houston have climbed the rankings too, with Winona jumping 291 spots in 2024 and Houston climbing 136.
Beyoncé’s Grammy-winning Cowboy Carter is part of the same crossover wave, and Wahlberg points to Psy’s comeback hit “That That,” Post Malone’s country-music pivot and Jelly Roll showing up on nearly every song on the radio.
She said the trend is stronger for boys. Colton, Walker, Silas, Weston, Wyatt and Maverick are among the Western-themed boy names in the top 100, and Sadie, Lucy, Delilah, Abigail and Oakley carry the same feel for girls. Cheyenne, Pearl and River are gaining traction too, along with Cody, Denver and Jackson.
Not every family naming a baby Wyatt or Sadie is taking inspiration from Taylor Sheridan’s shows, of course. Somewhere a delivery nurse has written Dutton on a bassinet card for a boy whose parents spent their Sunday nights watching a Montana family fight to hold on to that name.
The Duttons fought season after season over whose name stays on that ranch, and it ended up somewhere they never had to fight for it, on birth certificates across the country, carried by children who will grow up long after the show’s last season.
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