Ester
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in Spanish: variant of Ishtar, the Babylonian Venus; later linked to Persian/Hebrew forms meaning ‘star’ or ‘myrtle’
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/est̪eɾ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Ester is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Tanzania than in any other country. In Chile it is the 45th most common given name.
- TZTanzania≈1 in 328(inferred from the name graph)
- BRBrazil1 in 1.2K
- CLChile≈1 in 2.3K
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 Ester 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.
- Tanzania (inferred from the name graph)
- #805 (measured from records)
- 4 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 291 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 328 (inferred from the name graph)
≈180,000 people, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Tanzania, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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)
variant of Ishtar, the Babylonian Venus; later linked to Persian/Hebrew forms meaning ‘star’ or ‘myrtle’.
Sources 1
- Diccionario etimológico de nombres propios
Attested across 8 languages in the etymology graph.
How Ester is read(measured from records)
Ester 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.
- Spanish71%
variant of Ishtar, the Babylonian Venus; later linked to Persian/Hebrew forms meaning ‘star’ or ‘myrtle’.
as a nameDiccionario etimológico de nombres propios
Esther (biblical character)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Portuguese9.4%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Ester in Portuguese.
- English7.8%
A compound most often formed by the condensation of an alcohol and an acid, with elimination of water, which contains the functional group carbon-oxygen double bond (i.e., carbonyl) joined via carbon to another oxygen atom.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
Ester 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TZ Tanzania | #590 | ≈180,000 est. | ≈1 in 328 | — | Ester | 21 |
| BR Brazil | #301 | 176,238 | 1 in 1.2K | 176K | Ester | 160 |
| US United States | — | 131,090as Esther | 1 in 2.5K | 131K | Ester | 291 |
| ES Spain | #222 | 71,876as Esther | 1 in 696 | 73K | Ester | 172 |
| HU Hungary | — | 59,971as Eszter | 1 in 163 | 60K | — | — |
| SE Sweden | — | 16,702 | 1 in 611 | 17K | — | 20 |
| CL Chile | #45 | ≈7,900 est. | ≈1 in 2.3K | 62 | Ester | 87 |
| DK Denmark | — | 5,876as Esther | 1 in 999 | 5.9K | — | — |
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: SRCEI — Nombres más comunes (guaguas, 1920–2021); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); Nyilvántartó — Top-100 given names in population (2020–2025); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts). 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)
Ester is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Italian, Nome biblico, forse di origine persiana; significa 'stella'.
as a nameDizionario Dei Nomi e Cognomi Italiani
In Swedish, Ester är ett bibliskt namn, bildat till antingen ett persiskt stareh ’stjärna’ eller till namnet på den babyloniska kärleksgudinnan Ishtar. Namnet har varit populärt under de senaste decennierna. En finsk form är Esteri. I den rikssvenska almanackan 31 mars och i den finlandssvenska 16 maj.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
In Italian, S o m e biblico, forse non ebraico. nio persiano. Signi- ficherebbe ci stella ». Piìi iisa1.o dngli Israeliti 'he dai
as a nameNomi e Cognomi: Saggio di ricerche etimologiche e storiche
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)
- Estée Lauderb. 1906USnot in their usual nameAmerican businesswoman (1906–2004)
- Esther Williamsb. 1921USnot in their usual nameAmerican swimmer, actress and singer (1921–2013)
- Katherine Jacksonb. 1930USnot in their usual namematriarch of the Jackson musical family
- Gretchen Whitmerb. 1971USnot in their usual nameAmerican politician and attorney (born 1971)
- Esther Duflob. 1972FRnot in their usual nameFrench-American economist (born 1972)
- Esther Vergeerb. 1981NLnot in their usual nameDutch wheelchair tennis player
- Esther Acebob. 1983ESnot in their usual nameSpanish actress
- Ester Deanb. 1986USAmerican singer and songwriter
- Ester Ledeckáb. 1995CZCzech snowboarder and skier
- Ester Expósitob. 2000ESSpanish actress
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 110 sources across 53 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 176K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 175K | #188 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 100K | #476 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 31K | — |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 21K | #333 |
| ES Spain | INE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 21K | #183 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 17K | #258 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 16K | #1,835 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 5.7K | — |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 1.5K | #299 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 1.2K | #188 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 206 | #1,835 |
Reference works 5
- 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)
- 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 Ester mean, and where does it come from?
- variant of Ishtar, the Babylonian Venus; later linked to Persian/Hebrew forms meaning ‘star’ or ‘myrtle’. Recorded by Diccionario etimológico de nombres propios.
- What are other forms of the name Ester?
- In the etymology graph, Esther, Essie and Esta are forms of the same name in other languages; Essi is a recorded short or pet form.
- Is Ester a male or female name?
- Ester is a female 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 do you pronounce Ester?
- A machine transcription gives /est̪eɾ/ (IPA) for Spanish.
- In which country does Ester have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 179 thousand people named Ester in Tanzania, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled ester.
- How common is the name Ester?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 176,238 people named Ester in 2022, about 1 in 1.2 thousand residents.
- How common is Ester compared with other names?
- In Tanzania, Ester is the 590th most common given name of 37,285 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Ester?
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/esterThe 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, “Ester” — the 590th most common given name in Tanzania. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.