Bernard
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in English: A male given name from the Germanic languages
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/bəɹnɑɹd/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Bernard is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In France it is the 51st most common given name.
- FRFrance≈1 in 422(inferred from the name graph)
- BEBelgium≈1 in 627
- CMCameroon≈1 in 856
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 430 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 422 (inferred from the name graph)
≈660,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
France, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Germanic name meaning 'bear stern'; used in Ireland to anglicise Brian and Beircheart.
Sources 1
- Irish first names
Attested across 15 languages in the etymology graph.
How Bernard is read(measured from records)
Bernard is one spelling over 2 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.
- English59%
A male given name from the Germanic languages.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- French28%
Germanic, from ber(n) ‘bear’ + hard ‘strong, hardy’; borne by St Bernard.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
Germanic name from ber 'bear' and hard 'hard, brave'.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
du nom germanique Bernhard, de ber(n) « ours » et hard « dur, fort »
as a nameDictionnaire des noms de famille du Canada français. Anthroponymie et généalogie. 2e édition
Germanique bern « ours » + hard « fort »; fête le 20 août.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Bernard 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈660,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.1K | — | Bernard | 27 |
| FR France | #51 | ≈160,000 est. | ≈1 in 422 | 469K | Bernard | 430 |
| US United States | — | 82,518 | 1 in 4K | 82K | Bernard | 420 |
| PH Philippines | #905 | ≈62,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.8K | — | Bernard | 90 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈37,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.8K | — | Bernard | 153 |
| CM Cameroon | #75 | ≈32,000 est. | ≈1 in 856 | — | Bernard | 41 |
| CA Canada | #579 | ≈23,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.7K | 4 | Bernard | 189 |
| BE Belgium | #61 | ≈19,000 est. | ≈1 in 627 | 5.1K | Bernard | 162 |
| CH Switzerland | #224 | ≈5,600 est. | ≈1 in 1.5K | 1.1K | Bernard | 108 |
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: INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). 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)
Bernard is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Irish, Germanic name meaning 'bear stern'; used in Ireland to anglicise Brian and Beircheart.
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)
- Adam Mickiewiczb. 1798PLnot in their usual namePolish national poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator, and political activist (1798-1855)
- George Bernard Shawb. 1856GBIrish playwright, critic, and polemicist (1856–1950)
- Harvey Milkb. 1930USnot in their usual nameAmerican politician and gay rights activist (1930–1978)
- Jerry Orbachb. 1935USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor and singer (1935-2004)
- Bernard Madoffb. 1938USAmerican fraudster and financier (1938–2021)
- Bernie Sandersb. 1941USnot in their usual nameUnited States Senator from Vermont
- Bernie Macb. 1957USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor (1957–2008)
- D. B. Sweeneyb. 1961USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor
- Bernard Cazeneuveb. 1963FRFrench prime minister
- Theo Hernándezb. 1997FRnot in their usual nameFrench footballer (born 1997)
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 151 sources across 77 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 2024 | 469K | #2,346 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 82K | #641 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 143 | #641 |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 23 | — |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2024 | 4 | #922 |
Reference works 10
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- 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)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- Hoffman, Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings (2nd ed., 2012)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
- Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary
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
- Where does the name Bernard come from?
- Germanic name meaning 'bear stern'; used in Ireland to anglicise Brian and Beircheart. Recorded by Irish first names.
- What does the name Bernard mean?
- In English, A male given name from the Germanic languages.
- Is Bernard a male or female name?
- Bernard 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.
- What are other forms of the name Bernard?
- In the etymology graph, Bernardo, Bernd and Bernhard are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Bernard have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 656 thousand people named Bernard in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled bernard.
- How common is the name Bernard?
- In the United States, the national register counted 82,518 people named Bernard in 2020, about 1 in 4.0 thousand residents.
- How common is Bernard compared with other names?
- In France, Bernard is the 51st most common given name of 754,146 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Bernard?
- A machine transcription gives /bəɹnɑɹd/ (IPA) for English.
What do you want to know about Bernard?
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/bernardThe 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, “Bernard” — the 51st most common given name in France. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.