Ambrose
Ambrose is a boy's name that peaked in 2021, when it was the 672nd most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 735th. About 5,600 Ambroses are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 11.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Ambrose boys named Ambrose
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 10,911
- Estimated living today
- 5,600
- Median age today
- 11
- Peak year
- 2021
- Best rank
- 672nd
- Rank in 2025
- 735th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 43 / 10,868
How old the living Ambroses are
born that year still alive today
Of the 10,911 babies given the name since 1880, about 5,600 are alive — 51 in every hundred. Roughly 3,200 of them are children and 750 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2014 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 Ancient Greek
From Latin saints' name Ambrosius, from Ancient Greek ἀμβρόσιος (“immortal, divine”). Compare Athanasius.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Ambroses
- Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914)American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist
- Ambrose (339–397)Roman theologian and Bishop of Milan (c. 340–397)
- John Ambrose Fleming (1849–1945)English electrical engineer and physicist
- Ambrose Burnside (1824–1881)American general and politician
- Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini (1968–2020)former Prime Minister of Eswatini
- Ambrose Powell Hill (1825–1865)Confederate Army general
- Ambrose Traversari (1386–1439)Italian monk and theologian
- Elmer Ambrose Sperry (1860–1930)American mechanical engineer
People named Ambrose with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Ambrose is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Ambrose is most concentrated in Minnesota (3.7×), Wisconsin (3.1×), Iowa (2.2×), Louisiana (2.1×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2021
The most popular boys’ names the year Ambrose peaked:
Ambrose elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales boys | Ambrose | 392 | 873rd |
| Ireland boys | Ambrose | 116 | 155th |
| France boys | Ambrose | 115 | 1,569th |
| Poland boys | Ambrose | 2 birth registrations | 707th |
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.
Ambrose 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 boys | Ambrose | — | 6 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – 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.
Related names
Ambrose 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.