Ernestine vs Ernst
American parents have registered 44,191 Ernestines since 1880, against 2,383 Ernsts. Neither name reached five babies in 2025.
Babies given each name, 1880–2025
Ernestine 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 140 years in which either name was published, Ernestine for 132 years and Ernst for 8 years. The lead changed hands 10 times.
Side by side
| Ernestine | Ernst | |
|---|---|---|
| Total US births | 44,191 | 2,383 |
| Most in one year | 1,067 | 59 |
| Babies in 2025 | under 5 | under 5 |
| Estimated living today | 16,000 | 890 |
| Median age today | 74 | 54 |
| Peak year | 1928 | 1917 |
| Best rank | 193rd girls | 833rd boys |
| Rank in 2025 | unranked | unranked |
| First recorded | 1880 | 1880 |
| Girls / boys | 44,032 / 159 | 0 / 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 Ernestines alive today are over 74; half the Ernsts are over 54. That is 20 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.
Where each one is strongest
- Ernestine Mississippi (4.6×), South Carolina (3.9×), Arkansas (3.4×)
- Ernst Wisconsin (14.4×), New York (4.0×), Missouri (3.1×)
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 | Ernestine | Ernst |
|---|---|---|
| France | 15,555 | 35 |
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: Ernestine and Ernst.