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Bernhard

Boys' name

Bear + hard, brave, through *Bernuharduz

Bernhard has been given to 1,671 babies in the U.S. since 1880. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1916, with 55 recorded.

Babies named Bernhard, 2021

1 in 565,000

Bernhard over time, 1880–2025

Boys
020406018801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Bernhard: meaning, origin, and history

Bear + hard, brave, through *Bernuharduz

Old High German

What Bernhard means

Bernhard belongs to the name family reached through Bernhard → *Bernuharduz. Its meaning is “bear + hard, brave”.

Origin, language, and formation

Bernhard is used in Danish, Faroese, German, Norwegian and Swedish. Its origins include Old High German.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Bernard and *Bernuharduz.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 1,671 boys were recorded with the name Bernhard between 1880 and 2021. Its highest annual count was 55 in 1916; its best national rank was #591 in 1887.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Bernhard?

Bernhard had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2021, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2021
1 in 565,000
6 of 3,389,958 births
Among boys only
1 in 292,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2021
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
391,624 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Bernhard sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2021 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 391,624 children born in 2021 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Bernhard. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Bernhards were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Bernhard was born before 1934 — so the typical Bernhard is around 91 today.

Median birth year
1934
About 91 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
18.8% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
3.2%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
552
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1920s — 18.8% of all recorded uses (314).

Is Bernhard rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 1916 (55)
Years since peak
109
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
30.2% average annual change
Best rank ever
#591
1887

Spellings of Bernhard

Bernhard is not the most common spelling — Bernard is, with 90.7% against Bernhard's 0.76%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Bernhard is used

Across 1910–2025, Bernhard was most concentrated in Minnesota — about 1 in 100,000 boys, against 1 in 222,333 across all states with data. It was least common in Texas (1 in —).

01 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Minnesota1 in 100,000
  2. 2North Dakota1 in 100,000
  3. 3New York1 in 100,000
  4. 4Wisconsin1 in 100,000
  5. 5California1 in —
  6. 6Illinois1 in —
  7. 7Texas1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Bernhard has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Bernhard around the world

Where Bernhard ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • France
    1901–1970
    #1,760
    in 1970
  • Norway
    1880–2025
    #448
    in 2025
  • Canada
    1995–2023
    #3,103
    in 2023
  • South Australia
    1947–1997
    #543
    in 1997

Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Norway, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. SSB, CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence.

Bernhard by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#591
1887
Peak year
1916
55 that year
First recorded
1880
Last recorded
2021
All-time count
1,671
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Bernhard

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

BerkeleyBernabeBerkleyBerlinBernardBernardoBernellSheppardBertrandBertramBallardKennardRashardHilliardBerniceBernardinoShepardBereketBertonEduardBergenEdgardWilliardGerrard

Sibling names for Bernhard

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Bernhard

Top names of 1916, Bernhard's peak yearThe 1910s in fullOther names that peaked in 1887Boys' names starting with B