Ernest

114,307 people in America carry this name — ranked #492 of 923.

Its American moment came before the war.

Say it UR nuhst

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

ER1 N AH0 S T — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 114,307 2020 Census
  • Rank #492 Common
  • Per 100,000 37.8 about 1 in 2,900 people

The meaning and origin of Ernest

Teutonic in origin, reading literally as “eagle stone”.

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.

Ernest through the years

303,319 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1921, with 5,723 of them.

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

Most people carrying it were born in the 1920s. 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.

What goes well after Ernest

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

Better avoided

  • Ernest Thomas — runs together
  • Ernest Timothy — runs together
  • Ernest Eric — same opening

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

Ernest has more than halved in three decades. The people carrying it belong mostly to the Greatest Generation.

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

99.8% men
240 women

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

Names built the same way as Ernest

Nothing else in the file ends on the same sound — a rare thing, and useful if you want a first name nobody will echo.

Same rhythm — 2 syllables, stress on the first

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

The likeliest full names

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.

Spellings of Ernest

Ernest is how 63% of them spell it — 182,550 people answer to the sound.

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.

The states where Ernest is most common

In New Mexico the name is given 2.8 times as often as it is across the country.

  • New Mexico ×2.8
  • South Carolina ×2.4
  • the District of Columbia ×2.3
  • Louisiana ×2.1
  • Hawaii ×1.8

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 Birth Plan Worksheet

Tick what matters, print it, hand it over. Nothing is stored anywhere.

Open Birth Plan Worksheet 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