Erna vs Ernesta

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Erna Ernesta

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Of the 122 years in which either name was published, Erna for 117 years and Ernesta for 5 years. The lead changed hands 6 times.

• 1880–1972 Erna ahead
• 1973 Ernesta ahead
• 1974 Erna ahead
• 1975 Ernesta ahead
• 1976–1977 Erna ahead
• 1978–1980 Ernesta ahead
• 1981–2021 Erna ahead

Side by side

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Ernas alive today are over 74; half the Ernestas are over 55. That is 19 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

• Erna vs Ernest
• Erna vs Ernesto
• Erna vs Ernestine
• Erna vs Ernie
• Erna vs Ernestina
• Erna vs Ernst
• Ernesta vs Ernest
• Ernesta vs Ernesto