Name Awesome

Bernhardt

Boys' name

Bear

Bernhardt has been given to 423 babies in the U.S. since 1908. 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 1915, with 19 recorded.

Babies named Bernhardt, 1964

1 in 777,000

Bernhardt over time, 1880–2025

Boys
0510152018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Bernhardt: meaning, origin, and history

Bear

Old High German

What Bernhardt means

Bernhardt means “bear”, associated with bero.

Origin, language, and formation

Bernhardt is used in German. Its origins include Old High German.

Bernhardt comes through Middle High German Bernhart, Old High German Bernhart, Proto-West Germanic *Bernuhardu and Proto-Germanic *Bernuharduz.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Bernard and bero.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 423 boys were recorded with the name Bernhardt between 1908 and 1964. Its highest annual count was 19 in 1915; its best national rank was #1,297 in 1911.

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 Bernhardt?

Bernhardt had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1964, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1964
1 in 777,000
5 of 3,887,460 births
Among boys only
1 in 399,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 1964
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
538,918 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Bernhardt 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 1964 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 538,918 children born in 1964 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Bernhardt. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Bernhardts were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Bernhardt was born before 1924 — so the typical Bernhardt is around 101 today.

Median birth year
1924
About 101 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
32.9% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
16.3%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
31
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1920s — 32.9% of all recorded uses (139).

Is Bernhardt 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 1915 (19)
Years since peak
110
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
15.0% average annual change
Best rank ever
#1,297
1911

Spellings of Bernhardt

Bernhardt is not the most common spelling — Bernard is, with 93.4% against Bernhardt's 0.20%.

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 Bernhardt is used

Across 1910–2025, Bernhardt was most concentrated in Illinois — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 1,252,983 across all states with data. It was least common in New York (1 in —).

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Illinois1 in —
  2. 2Minnesota1 in —
  3. 3New York1 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. Bernhardt has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Bernhardt around the world

Where Bernhardt 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.

  • South Australia
    1957–1958
    #304
    in 1958

Popularity data from Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Bernhardt 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
#1,297
1911
Peak year
1915
19 that year
First recorded
1908
Last recorded
1964
All-time count
423
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Bernhardt

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

BerkeleyReinhardtBereketBergenBertholdBerishBernabeBernerdBerkleyBerenBertrumBernardinoBernhardBernisBertisBerlinBertilBertinBerelBertranBernadetteGerhardtBernardoBerman

Sibling names for Bernhardt

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 Bernhardt

Top names of 1915, Bernhardt's peak yearThe 1910s in fullOther names that peaked in 1911Boys' names starting with B