An English place name meaning "Brihtsige's town" or settlement.
Brixton began as a place-name before it became a given name. It is most often traced to the South London district, whose older forms are commonly interpreted as meaning something like "Brixi's stone" or "the stone of Brixi," from an Old English personal name plus a word for stone. That makes Brixton part of a long tradition of English toponymic names: words first used for settlements, then surnames, and only much later as first names.
Linguistically it is sturdy and Anglo-Saxon, but as a modern given name it feels sleek, urban, and newly minted. Its cultural associations are unusually vivid for such a recent personal name. Brixton the London district has long stood for music, migration, political energy, and Black British cultural life; it evokes reggae, punk, markets, activism, and a neighborhood identity that is far bigger than a map label.
As a given name, though, Brixton is mostly a twenty-first-century invention, helped along by the popularity of other brisk two-syllable names ending in -ton. That has shifted its perception from purely geographic to stylish and contemporary. It does not yet have a long roster of historical bearers, but it carries a rich cultural echo through the place itself. So Brixton feels like many modern place-derived names do at their best: rooted in old English landscape language, yet heard today as bold, metropolitan, and a little rebellious.