Whitten is an English surname turned first name, from Old English place names made of hwit and tun, "white farmstead" or "white settlement". It fits the current taste for two-syllable surnames such as Weston and Walker. Whitten was hardly recorded in 2000, hovered between number 3000 and 5000 through the 2010s and reached number 2938 in 2025, its best rank to date.