Eric
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in English: Germanic name of uncertain meaning; revived in England in the 19th century and used occasionally in modern Ireland
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ɛɹɪk/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Eric is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country, where it is the 38th most common given name.
- FRFrance≈1 in 275(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 434
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 789
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Eric itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- #75 (measured from records)
- 7 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 674 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 275 (inferred from the name graph)
767,096 people, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
France, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Erik in SE Sweden, NO Norway, DK Denmark, Erick in BR Brazil, EC Ecuador and Эрик in FI Finland.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Germanic name of uncertain meaning; revived in England in the 19th century and used occasionally in modern Ireland.
Sources 1
- Irish first names
Attested across 15 languages in the etymology graph.
How Eric is read(measured from records)
Eric is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- English72%
Germanic name of uncertain meaning; revived in England in the 19th century and used occasionally in modern Ireland.
as a nameIrish first names
A fine paid as compensation for violent crimes.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- French11%
Du vieux norrois Eiríkr, « roi éternel, puissant à jamais »; fête de saint Éric le 18 mai.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
Germanic: ‘toujours puissant, chef’ (ei ‘toujours’ + ríkr ‘puissant, chef’).
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
- Spanish6.2%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Eric in Spanish.
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Eric counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #38 | 767,096 | 1 in 434 | 766K | Eric | 674 |
| SE Sweden | #12 | 293,641as Erik | 1 in 35 | 294K | Erik | 204 |
| FR France | #22 | ≈250,000 est. | ≈1 in 275 | 318K | Eric | 473 |
| BR Brazil | #197 | 141,395as Erick | 1 in 1.5K | 141K | Erick | 210 |
| PH Philippines | #59 | ≈140,000 est. | ≈1 in 789 | — | Eric | 197 |
| EC Ecuador | #782 | 63,586as Erick | 1 in 266 | 64K | Erick | 79 |
| FI Finland | #326 | 25,053as Erik | 1 in 222 | 47K | Эрик | 56 |
| DK Denmark | #16 | 23,634as Erik | 1 in 248 | 24K | Erik | 190 |
| NO Norway | #5 | 20,811as Erik | 1 in 263 | 74K | Erik | 167 |
767,096 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); INEC — civil registry names; DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Eric is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Of Old Norse origin, from ei ‘ever’, ‘always’ (or einn ‘one’, ‘alone’) + rikr ‘ruler’. It was introduced into Britain by Scandinavian settlers before the Norman Conquest. As a modern given name, it was revived in the mid- 19th century and has remained in use since.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
A Germanic name of uncertain meaning, which was revived in England in the nineteenth century. It has occasionally been used in modern Ireland.
as a nameIrish first names
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- George Orwellb. 1903GBnot in their usual nameBritish writer and journalist (1903–1950)
- Eric Hobsbawmb. 1917GBBritish academic historian and Marxist historiographer (1917–2012)
- Eric Claptonb. 1945GBBritish musician
- Eric Maskinb. 1950USAmerican Nobel laureate in economics
- Jamie Foxxb. 1967USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor, comedian, and singer (born 1967)
- Dave Grohlb. 1969USnot in their usual nameAmerican rock musician
- Eric Prydzb. 1976SESwedish DJ and record producer (born 1976)
- William Gallasb. 1977FRnot in their usual nameFrench footballer (born 1977)
- Éric Abidalb. 1979FRFrench footballer (born 1979)
- Eric Dierb. 1994GBEnglish association football player
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 146 sources across 81 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 766K | #41 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 2024 | 318K | #756 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 73K | #604 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 63K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 63K | #490 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 37K | #114 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 9.4K | — |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 3.9K | #740 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 3.6K | #380 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 3.5K | — |
| EC Ecuador | INEC — civil registry names | 2024 | 2.9K | #380 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register) | — | 2.1K | — |
Reference works 6
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Eric mean, and where does it come from?
- Germanic name of uncertain meaning; revived in England in the 19th century and used occasionally in modern Ireland. Recorded by Irish first names.
- Is Eric a male or female name?
- Eric is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- How common is the name Eric?
- In the United States, the national register counted 767,096 people named Eric in 2020, about 1 in 434 residents.
- How common is Eric compared with other names?
- In the United States, Eric is the 38th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
- In which country does Eric have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 767 thousand people named Eric, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled eric.
- How do you pronounce Eric?
- A machine transcription gives /ɛɹɪk/ (IPA) for English.
- What are other forms of the name Eric?
- In the etymology graph, Erik, Erick and Erich are forms of the same name in other languages.
What do you want to know about Eric?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/ericThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Eric” — the 38th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.