Name Awesome

Ernst

Boys' name

English equivalent of Ernest

Ernst has been given to 2,383 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 1917, with 59 recorded.

Babies named Ernst, 2021

1 in 678,000

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Ernst: meaning, origin, and history

English equivalent of Ernest

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Ernst means

Ernst is a English equivalent of Ernest.

Origin, language, and formation

Ernst is used in Danish, Estonian, Faroese, German, Norwegian and Swedish.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Ernest.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Danish, Ernst is pronounced [ænsd̥].

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 2,383 boys were recorded with the name Ernst between 1880 and 2021. Its highest annual count was 59 in 1917; its best national rank was #417 in 1885.

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 Ernst?

Ernst 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 678,000
5 of 3,389,958 births
Among boys only
1 in 350,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2021
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
469,949 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Ernst 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 469,949 children born in 2021 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Ernst. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Ernsts were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Ernst was born before 1936 — so the typical Ernst is around 89 today.

Median birth year
1936
About 89 years old
Biggest decade
1910s
15.6% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
5.2%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
893
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1910s — 15.6% of all recorded uses (371).

Is Ernst 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 1917 (59)
Years since peak
108
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
25.4% average annual change
Best rank ever
#417
1885

Spellings of Ernst

Ernst is not the most common spelling — Ernest is, with 70.7% against Ernst's 0.56%.

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 Ernst is used

Across 1910–2025, Ernst was most concentrated in Wisconsin — about 1 in 33,333 boys, against 1 in 217,432 across all states with data. It was least common in Texas (1 in —).

03 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Wisconsin1 in 33,333
  2. 2Illinois1 in 100,000
  3. 3Missouri1 in 100,000
  4. 4New York1 in 100,000
  5. 5California1 in —
  6. 6Florida1 in —
  7. 7Kentucky1 in —
  8. 8Ohio1 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. Ernst has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Ernst around the world

Where Ernst 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
    1902–2020
    #6,979
    in 2020
  • Norway
    1880–2014
    #546
    in 2014
  • South Australia
    1944–1976
    #651
    in 1976

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

Notable people named Ernst

People whose public names include Ernst, backed by Wikidata given-name records and ordered by linked Wikimedia pages. The name may be a middle name.

People data from Wikidata (CC0). Fame is measured, not judged — the order reflects how widely each person is documented, not the U.S. birth records popularity this page is otherwise about.

Ernst in other languages

Cross-language forms and variants of Ernst. Linked forms have their own page here.

ErnestErnestoErnőArnoštErnstiErnstsErnestan

Variant forms from Wikidata (CC0). Most are used mainly outside the United States; U.S. birth records statistics cover US usage only.

Ernst 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
#417
1885
Peak year
1917
59 that year
First recorded
1880
Last recorded
2021
All-time count
2,383
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Ernst

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

ErnieErnanErnestoErnestErnadErnelErneyErnestineErnaErnalErnistEarnstErnyErnoErniestErenstErnestor

Names with a curve like Ernst

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Ernst, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

AlmaGerhardChesleyThorntonOcieNatWebsterAcieLambertIvyGodfreyMarie

Sibling names for Ernst

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 Ernst

Top names of 1917, Ernst's peak yearThe 1910s in fullOther names that peaked in 1885Boys' names starting with EShort German Boy Names