Ester
Ester is a girl's name that peaked in 1925, when it was the 410th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 1,570th. About 9,000 Esters are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 46.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Ester boys named Ester
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 17,156
- Estimated living today
- 9,000
- Median age today
- 46
- Peak year
- 1925
- Best rank
- 410th
- Rank in 2025
- 1,570th
- First recorded
- 1881
- Girls / boys
- 16,265 / 891
How old the living Esters are
born that year still alive today
Of the 17,156 babies given the name since 1881, about 9,000 are alive — 52 in every hundred. Roughly 2,200 of them are children and 2,900 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1979 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Hebrew
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Esters
- Ester Ledecká (born 1995)Czech snowboarder and skier
- Ester Expósito (born 2000)Spanish actress
- Ester Peony (born 1993)Romanian singer and songwriter
- Ester Dean (born 1986)American singer and songwriter
- Ester Mägi (1922–2021)Estonian composer
- Ester Boserup (1910–1999)Danish economist
- Ester Workel (born 1975)Dutch rower
- Ester Martin Bergsmark (born 1982)Swedish film director and screenwriter
People named Ester with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Ester is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Ester is most concentrated in Mississippi (5.2×), Texas (4.3×), Arkansas (3.3×), Alabama (2.8×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1925
The most popular girls’ names the year Ester peaked:
Ester elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Italy girls | Ester | 7,552 | — |
| Sweden girls | Ester | 6,897 | 21st |
| Norway girls | Ester | 1,084 | 133rd |
| France girls | Ester | 565 | 1,618th |
| England and Wales girls | Ester | 365 | 1,326th |
| Belgium girls | Ester | 247 | 533rd |
| Switzerland girls | Ester | 77 | 693rd |
| Poland girls | Ester | 61 birth registrations | 313th |
| Ireland girls | Ester | 32 | 282nd |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Ester: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Ester | 34 | 0.003% | 828th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Ester | 19 | 0.004% | 455th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Ester | 24 | 0.037% | 85th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
Ester: rank by region
In 2021, Ester was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Ester | 881 | 5 |
In 2019, Ester was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Ester | 10 | 1 |
In 2025, Ester was given 2 times or more in 3 regions of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mazowieckie | Ester | 276 | 3 |
| Pomorskie | Ester | 209 | 2 |
| Wielkopolskie | Ester | 248 | 2 |
In 2017, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Ester appears in the lists for Province of Antwerp (334th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Ester among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Ester | 772 | 4,551 |
| the Netherlands girls | Ester | 2,696 | 3,480 |
| the Netherlands boys | Ester | — | 22 |
Among girls in Finland this is mostly a middle name: of the 4,551 who carry it, 772 go by it.
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026, the Netherlands on 1 January 2018 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Ester lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 21,133 women called Ester were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lleida | Ester | 767 | 3.443 | 55 |
| Girona | Ester | 1,250 | 3.019 | 66 |
| Tarragona | Ester | 1,094 | 2.502 | 75 |
| Barcelona | Ester | 6,647 | 2.184 | 80 |
| Castellón/Castelló | Ester | 476 | 1.509 | 119 |
| Valencia/València | Ester | 1,821 | 1.290 | 138 |
Listed in 52 of Spain's 52 provinces. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Ester against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.