Jaxon, Axel, Max: the names with an X in them

In 2017, the last year we hold a full count for, 80,713 American boys were given a name with an X in it. That is one boy in 23. In 1947 it was one boy in 426, and the X names then were the ones you would expect: Alexander, Max, Rex, Alex, Felix. The X names of 2017 are a different list. Behind Alexander come Jaxon, Jaxson, Xavier, Axel, Braxton and Maddox, and more American boys that year were called Jaxon or Jaxson than were called Jackson.

Girls had their X moment earlier, and gave it back. In 1998 one American girl in 46 had an X in her name, and nearly half of them were called Alexis, which was sixth in the country that year and third the year after. By 2017 it was one girl in 77, exactly where it had been in 1990, and today not one girls' name with an X is in the American top 100. In England and Wales the X is rarer on both sides: one boy in 33 and one girl in 197. And Britain's X is the old one. Max, Felix, Rex and Dexter are all commoner here per head than in America, and Jaxson, Maddox and Xavier are three to four times commoner there.

How we counted

A name counts if the letter X appears anywhere in it, as the official file spells it. That is spelling, not sound. Jackson does not count and Jaxon does. Beatrix counts and Beatrice does not. Boys and girls are counted from their own lists. For 1880 to 2008 we use the long American series, which holds the top 1,000 names of each sex and their share of births, so those figures are a floor: a name outside the top 1,000 is not in them. For 1990, 2000, 2005, 2008, 2010 and 2017 we have the full files, every name given to five or more babies, and for 2015 to 2025 the published rankings. England and Wales is the full Office for National Statistics file for 2025, checked against 2024. There is no hand list.

One boy in 213, one in 426, one in 23

In 1880 there were nine names with an X in the American boys' top 1,000, and one boy in 213 had one. Alexander was 73rd in the country and 38% of the group, then Alex 92nd, Felix 148th, Max 230th, Axel 442nd, Rex 519th, Baxter 573rd and Maxwell 668th. The X held at about one boy in 200 to 1920, with Max the biggest X name from 1919 to 1942, and then it thinned for a generation. The low was 1947: 2.4 boys in every 1,000, one in 426, with Alexander down at 190th, Max 217th, Rex 220th and Alex 228th. Rex was the leading X name through the 1950s, which tells you how little was left.

The turn came in the 1980s, and at first it was all Alexander. Alexander was 92nd in 1980, 28th in 1990, 22nd in 1998 and 6th in 2008. In the full 1990 file 32,495 boys had an X name, one in 63, and Alexander was 16,182 of them, half. Add Alex and it is 71%. There were 98 different X spellings in that file. Jaxon was given to 16 boys.

Then the X spread out. 166 spellings in 2000, 265 in 2008, 299 in 2010 and 705 in 2017. One boy in 44 in 2000, one in 32 in 2008, one in 23 in 2017. Alexander was still the biggest X name in 2017, with 12,467 boys, but it was 15% of the group, not half. Jaxon had 7,649, Jaxson 4,820, Xavier 4,468, Axel 3,764, Braxton 3,320, Max 3,121, Maxwell 3,052, Maddox 3,017, Alex 2,578, Xander 2,396, Maximus 1,951, Paxton 1,898, Jax 1,707, Knox 1,628, Felix 1,498 and Phoenix 1,332. The names beginning Jax alone, Jaxon, Jaxson, Jax, Jaxton and their spellings, went from 16 boys in 1990 to 816 in 2000, 4,711 in 2008 and 16,675 in 2017.

Where the new X came from

Sort the X names by the first year each one appeared in the American top 1,000 and the boom splits in two. In 1990, 95% of the X boys had a name that was in the top 1,000 before 1900: Alexander, Alex, Max, Maxwell, Felix, Axel, Rex, Dexter, and the surnames Knox and Braxton, which were both there in the 1880s. In 2000 it was 88%. In 2008 it was 70%. In 2017 it was 47%, and more than half of the X boys had a name that was not in the top 1,000 before 1980 or has never been in it: Jaxon and Paxton first appeared in 1997, Jaxson and Xander in 1999, Maximus in 2000, Maddox in 2003, Jax in 2005, Daxton in 2007, and Hendrix, Lennox, Jaxton, Axton, Maxton and Huxley had never been in the top 1,000 by 2008 at all. So the first half of the climb, to about 2000, was the old names coming back. The second half was new ones.

The girls: Maxine, then Alexis

For girls the X was almost nothing for a century. In 1880 one girl in 1,073 had one, and the biggest X name was Roxie at 196th, with Dixie 437th. Maxine was the leading X name from 1906 to 1951 and reached 81st in 1920, when it was four fifths of the girls' X on its own. Roxanne led from 1952 to 1975. Through all of that the X never passed 3.5 girls in 1,000.

Then Alexandra and Alexis arrived together. Two girls in 1,000 in 1980, 10.7 in 1990, 21.7 in 1998, one girl in 46 and the record for the series. Alexis went from 66th in 1990 to 27th in 1993, 8th in 1996, 6th in 1998 and 3rd in 1999, and in 1998 it was 47% of all the X girls. Alexandra was 26th to 38th through those years, Alexandria 81st, Alexa 93rd, and behind them Alexus, Alexia, Lexi and Lexus, 518th in 1998. The full 2000 file is the peak: 43,245 girls, one in 42, and 17,622 of them Alexis. From 1994 to 1999 the girls' X outnumbered the boys' X per 1,000 born, the only years it ever has.

It went back down almost as fast. One girl in 50 in 2005, one in 58 in 2008, one in 77 in 2017: 22,124 girls, the same share as 1990. The names beginning Alex went from 38,029 girls in 2000 to 11,167 in 2017. The biggest X girls' name in 2017 was Alexa at 3,883, then Alexandra 2,592, Ximena 2,534, Alexis 2,044 and Alexandria 1,238. On the rankings since then the fall has carried on. Alexa was 32nd in 2015 and dropped every single year to 806th in 2024 and out of the top 1,000 in 2025. Alexis went from 85th to 554th, Alexandra 101st to 237th, Alexandria 212th to 474th, Lexi 309th to 628th, Alexia 318th to out. In 2015 two X names were in the girls' top 100. Now there are none, and the highest is Ximena at 183rd.

Since 2017: the boys' X turns too

We do not hold American counts after 2017, only rankings, so this part is read from positions. They point one way. In 2015 four X names were in the boys' top 100: Alexander 8th, Jaxon 44th, Jaxson 84th and Xavier 90th. In 2020 there were five, with Axel at 72nd. In 2025 there are two: Alexander 30th and Axel 79th. Alexander has fallen in every year since 2020. Jaxon was 39th in 2018 and has fallen in every year since, to 115th. Jaxson 84th to 156th, Maxwell 113th to 189th, Max 118th to 180th, Braxton 121st to 172nd, Alex 134th to 232nd, Maddox 148th to 210th, Jax 215th to 342nd, Paxton 229th to 338th, Jaxton 409th to 667th. The boys' top 1,000 held 38 X names in 2015, 41 in 2020 and 34 in 2025.

The ones going up are a shorter list: Axel 123rd to 79th, Felix 263rd to 175th, Knox 257th to 196th, Lennox 490th to 289th, Hendrix 442nd to 354th, Huxley 960th to 736th. Which is to say, of the big new X names of 2017, only Axel is still climbing. Whether the count has turned down as well as the rank we cannot say until there is a newer full file.

England and Wales: one boy in 33

In England and Wales in 2025, 8,261 boys were given a name with an X in it, one in 33, across 105 spellings. Alexander is 40th with 1,271 boys, Max 48th with 1,061, Felix 59th with 811, Jaxon 88th with 605, Jax 145th, Axel 147th, Dexter 154th, Maxwell 183rd, Maximilian 206th, Alex 207th, Maximus 219th, Jaxson 220th, Rex 228th, Xander 236th, Xavier 263rd, Phoenix and Lennox 287th, Huxley 296th and Maddox 302nd. Knox, 196th in America, went to 39 boys here. The names beginning Jax total 1,325, one British boy in 207, against one American boy in 110 in 2017.

Girls: 1,286 with an X name, one in 197, 57 spellings. Alexandra is the biggest at 231st with 202 girls, then Beatrix 265th with 173, Lexi 337th, Margaux 455th, Pixie 585th, Lexie 676th and Phoenix 733rd with 50. Alexis, third in America in 1999, went to 34 girls here. Alexa went to five. Ximena, America's biggest X girls' name on the rankings now, is not in the file at all, which means fewer than three girls.

One year is not a trend, but 2024 to 2025 moved the same way as the American rankings. X boys fell from 9,290 to 8,261, down 11% in a year in which all boys fell 1.5%, and most of the drop was Jaxon (775 to 605, 66th to 88th), Jax (465 to 366), Axel (431 to 363) and Alexander (1,365 to 1,271). Girls went from 1,454 to 1,286.

Whose X is whose

Put the two countries per head, England and Wales 2025 against America 2017, and the line falls between the old X and the new. More British: Beatrix 4.9 times as common here as there, Felix 3.3, Huxley 3.2, Rex 3.1, Dexter 3.1, Margaux 2.9, Maximilian 2.3, Max 2.1. More American: Xavier 4.2 times as common there, Jaxson 3.5, Maddox 3.3, Phoenix for girls 2.8, Jaxon 2.1, Alexandra 2.1, Xander 1.9, Hendrix 1.9, Maxwell 1.8, Axel 1.7, Alex 1.7, Alexander 1.6. Jax and Lennox are slightly more British, Lexie is level. Of the boys' X names that were in the American top 1,000 before 1900 and are big enough to compare, Britain uses Felix, Rex, Dexter and Max more than America does, and America uses Alexander, Alex, Maxwell, Axel and Xavier more. Of the big ones that arrived after 1995, only Jax, Lennox and Huxley are commoner here. All X names together, boys are 1.5 times as common per head in America and girls 2.5 times.

What we cannot tell you

Why. The files hold what parents chose, not why, and a letter does not have a reason. We can say that the girls' X was one wave of Alex- names that rose and fell in thirty years, and that the boys' X was the old names coming back and then new names being made, and that the rankings since 2020 point down for both. We cannot say what any of that was copying. The rule counts a letter, so it puts Beatrix with Jaxon and Ximena with Lexi, which nobody saying them would. We do not hold American counts after 2017 or any year from 2009 to 2014, the long series is a floor because it holds only the top 1,000, and we hold two British years, so Britain's own history of the X is not in this article.

What it means for you

If you like the X, you are choosing between two lists. Alexander, Max, Felix, Dexter and Rex are the ones that were on the American list in 1880 and are all in Britain's top 230 now; Felix is the one of them still climbing in America. Jaxon, Jaxson, Maddox, Paxton and Jax are the ones made after 1995, which peaked in America around 2018 and fell here last year too. Axel is the odd one out: on the list since 1880, still climbing in America, 147th here. For a girl the field is wide open: Beatrix, Alexandra and Lexi are the only X names given to more than 100 girls here in 2025, and Alexis, third in America within living memory, went to 34.