Austen is a spelling of Austin, the medieval English contraction of Augustine, which comes from the Latin augustus and means "great" or "venerable". The -en spelling is the one made famous by the novelist Jane Austen, and some parents choose it for that literary echo, for girls as well as boys. For boys Austen stood at number 706 in 2000, left the top 1000 shortly afterwards and ranks number 2518 in 2025, with 53 births.