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Ernesto vs Ernst

American parents have registered 44,816 Ernestos since 1880, against 2,383 Ernsts. Ernesto is still ahead, with 272 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Ernesto against Ernst, 1880 to 2025 0 250 500 750 1k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Ernesto Ernst

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 145 years in which either name was published, Ernesto for 118 years and Ernst for 27 years. The lead changed hands 7 times.

Side by side

  Ernesto Ernst
Total US births 44,8162,383
Most in one year 85459
Babies in 2025 272under 5
Estimated living today 38,000890
Median age today 3354
Peak year 20031917
Best rank 335th boys833rd boys
Rank in 2025 878thunranked
First recorded 18891880
Girls / boys 121 / 44,6950 / 2,383

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 Ernsts alive today are over 54; half the Ernestos are over 33. That is 21 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

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

Country Ernesto Ernst
France 67035

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

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Ernesto and Ernst.