Erik

137,631 people in America carry this name — ranked #410 of 923.

Carried mostly by Generation X.

Say it EH rihk

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

EH1 R IH0 K — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

People counted 137,631 2020 Census
Per 100,000 45.6 about 1 in 2,408 people
As a surname 152 ranked #120,164 the other way round

Where Erik comes from and what it means

Teutonic in origin, reading literally as “ever king”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

Erik name popularity by year

154,804 babies were given this name since 1911. The busiest year was 1980, with 4,958 of them.

15k 32k 37k 34k 22k 10k

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80s 90 00 10 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 1980s. It has been given less often of late.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

Middle names that fit Erik

Two syllables sit with almost anything — the join matters more than the length.

Better avoided

Erik Christopher — runs together
Erik Kevin — runs together
Erik Eric — rhymes

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

Going quiet

Erik has more than halved in three decades. The people carrying it belong mostly to Generation X.

Is Erik a boy's or a girl's name?

99.8% men

294 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

Full names people carry

The census counts first names and surnames separately and never together, so these are estimates: how often the two halves would meet if they paired at random. They do not — names cluster by community — so read them as an order of magnitude, not a headcount.

Same syllables and stress as Erik

Ends on the same sound

Same rhythm — 2 syllables, stress on the first

Matched on phonemes, not spelling, so the lists follow the ear rather than the page.

Spellings of Erik

Erik is how 13% of them spell it — 1,052,161 people answer to the sound.

Eric 73%
Erika 14%
Erik 13%

Each spelling is its own census entry — the counts never overlap, so the shares are of the group, not of the country.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

Who answers to it now

White alone (non-Hispanic) — 63.3%
Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 3.9%
Hispanic or Latino origin — 28.1%
Two or more races — 2.7%
Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 1.5%

Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.

Where the name Erik is most common in the US

In Minnesota the name is given 1.9 times as often as it is across the country.

Minnesota ×1.9
Alaska ×1.8
Washington ×1.7
California ×1.6
Oregon ×1.6

Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.

Try it First-Year Costs

Open First-Year Costs on its own page

Where this page gets its numbers

Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers
Other names of Teutonic origin