Ernest
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Germanic, ‘vigour’; used in Ireland to anglicise Ernan
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈɝnəst/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Ernest is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Ghana it is the 11th most common given name.
- GHGhana≈1 in 584(inferred from the name graph)
- ZASouth Africa≈1 in 1.4K
- SGSingapore≈1 in 1.6K
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 Ernest 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)
- #646 (measured from records)
- 5 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 541 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 584 (inferred from the name graph)
114,307 people, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Ghana, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
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, ‘vigour’; used in Ireland to anglicise Ernan.
Sources 1
- Irish first names
Attested across 8 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Ernest 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 | #266 | 114,307 | 1 in 2.9K | 114K | Ernest | 541 |
| NG Nigeria | #480 | ≈94,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.3K | listed | Ernest | 115 |
| GH Ghana | #11 | ≈50,000 est. | ≈1 in 584 | — | Ernest | 114 |
| ZA South Africa | #129 | ≈40,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | — | Ernest | 96 |
| GB United Kingdom | #298 | ≈38,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.7K | 18 | Ernest | 232 |
| CA Canada | #296 | ≈22,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.7K | 7 | Ernest | 215 |
| SE Sweden | — | 9,668as Ernst | 1 in 1.1K | 9.7K | Ernest | 46 |
| SG Singapore | #183 | ≈3,900 est. | ≈1 in 1.6K | — | Ernest | 106 |
114,307 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; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population). 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)
Ernest is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In French, From Germanic ernust, 'seriousness' or 'earnestness'.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In English, from OG Arn(e)gis / OFr Erneϊs, Ernaϊs, Hernaϊs, Hernays; first attested Hamo filius Erneis 1115 Winton (Ha)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
Of Germanic origin, derived from the Old High German vocabulary word eornost ‘serious business’, ‘battle to the death’. The name was introduced into
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
Germanic. See main dictionary. Esmé ¢ From Latin Aestimdtus ‘esteemed’, _ ‘highly valued’. Feminine form: Esmée.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
Germanic, ‘vigour’. Aname used in Ireland to anglicise Ernan.
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)
- Ernest Renanb. 1823FRFrench philosopher and writer (1823–1892)
- George Vb. 1865GBnot in their usual nameKing of the United Kingdom from 1910 to 1936
- Fredric Marchb. 1897USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor (1897–1975)
- Ernest Hemingwayb. 1899USAmerican author and journalist (1899–1961)
- Ernest Lawrenceb. 1901USAmerican nuclear physicist (1901–1958)
- John Steinbeckb. 1902USnot in their usual nameAmerican writer (1902–1968)
- Ernest Thomas Sinton Waltonb. 1903IEIrish physicist and Nobel laureate (1903-1995)
- Ernest Borgnineb. 1917USAmerican actor (1917–2012)
- Eric Hobsbawmb. 1917GBnot in their usual nameBritish academic historian and Marxist historiographer (1917–2012)
- Ron Paulb. 1935USnot in their usual nameAmerican politician (born 1935)
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 129 sources across 73 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 114K | #492 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 500 | #2,778 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 240 | #492 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 213 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 192 | — |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 26 | — |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2024 | 7 | #607 |
Reference works 7
- 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
- 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)
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 Ernest mean, and where does it come from?
- Germanic, ‘vigour’; used in Ireland to anglicise Ernan. Recorded by Irish first names.
- What are other forms of the name Ernest?
- In the etymology graph, Ernesto, Earnest and Erno are forms of the same name in other languages; Ernie and Ern are recorded short or pet forms.
- Is Ernest a male or female name?
- Ernest 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.
- In which country does Ernest have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 114 thousand people named Ernest, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled ernest.
- How do you pronounce Ernest?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈɝnəst/ (IPA) for English.
- How common is the name Ernest?
- In the United States, the national register counted 114,307 people named Ernest in 2020, about 1 in 2.9 thousand residents.
- How common is Ernest compared with other names?
- In the United States, Ernest is the 266th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Ernest?
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/ernestThe 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, “Ernest” — the 266th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.