Eric
The boy's name Eric has been in the national records since 1880, with 893,184 births to its name. In 2025 it ranked 273rd. About 797,000 Erics are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 44.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Eric boys named Eric
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 893,184
- Estimated living today
- 797,000
- Median age today
- 44
- Peak year
- 1970
- Best rank
- 18th
- Rank in 2025
- 273rd
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 4,293 / 888,891
How old the living Erics are
born that year still alive today
Of the 893,184 babies given the name since 1880, about 797,000 are alive — 89 in every hundred. Roughly 51,000 of them are children and 53,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1981 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 Germanic languages
From Middle English Eric, from Old English Eoric, from Old Norse Eirríkr, Eiríkr, or from Proto-Germanic *Aizarīkijaz. Less likely from Proto-Germanic *rīks (“king”). The name was in use in Anglo-Saxon Britain, reinforced by Scandinavian settlers before the Norman Conquest. Compare Danish Erik, German Erich. Possible.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Erics
- Eric Clapton (born 1945)British musician
- Eric Cantona (born 1966)French footballer and actor
- Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012)British academic historian and Marxist historiographer
- Eric Abidal (born 1979)French footballer
- Eric Allin Cornell (born 1961)American physicist, professor
- Eric Bana (born 1968)Australian actor
- Eric Idle (born 1943)British comedian, actor and writer
- Eric Dier (born 1994)English association football player
People named Eric with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Eric is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Eric is most concentrated in the District of Columbia (1.6×), Alaska (1.5×), Delaware (1.4×), Vermont (1.4×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1970
The most popular boys’ names the year Eric peaked:
Eric elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France boys | Eric +1 spelling | 321,170 | 3rd |
| Spain boys | Eric | 23,255 | 37th |
| England and Wales boys | Eric | 6,954 | 124th |
| Ireland boys | Eric | 3,621 | 62nd |
| Italy boys | Eric | 2,402 | — |
| Switzerland boys | Eric +2 spellings | 1,655 | 96th |
| Norway boys | Eric | 1,319 | 188th |
| New Zealand boys | Eric | 808 | 72nd |
| Scotland boys | Eric | 735 | 90th |
| Belgium boys | Eric | 653 | 293rd |
| Poland boys | Eric | 482 birth registrations | 170th |
| Northern Ireland boys | Eric | 137 | 169th |
| France girls | Eric | 10 | 1,108th |
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.
Eric: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | Eric | 1,288 | 0.104% | 90th |
| German boys | Switzerland | Éric | 15 | 0.001% | 1,015th |
| German boys | Switzerland | Èric | 4 | 0.000% | 1,469th |
| French boys | Switzerland | Eric | 252 | 0.058% | 94th |
| French boys | Switzerland | Éric | 13 | 0.003% | 527th |
| French boys | Switzerland | Èric | 1 | 0.000% | 917th |
| Italian boys | Switzerland | Eric | 79 | 0.121% | 41st |
| Romansh boys | Switzerland | Eric | 3 | 0.081% | 7th |
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.
By canton, Eric is most concentrated in Zug, where 0.14% of children were given it – 38 of them.
Eric: rank by region
In 2025, Eric was given 5 times or more in 2 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Eric | 355 | 16 |
| Brussels | Eric | 187 | 7 |
In 2019, Eric was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Spain.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cataluña | Eric | 10 | 350 |
In 2025, Eric was given 2 times or more in 1 region of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mazowieckie | Eric | 235 | 4 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Eric appears in the lists for Brussels-Capital Region (187th) and Province of Antwerp (226th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Spain 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.
Eric by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 126 | 127th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Eric 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands boys | Eric | 18,655 | 23,152 |
| Finland boys | Eric | 714 | 2,118 |
| the Netherlands girls | Eric | — | 126 |
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, 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.
Where Eric lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 33,000 men called Eric were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Men: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barcelona | Eric | 14,197 | 4.868 | 39 |
| Tarragona | Eric | 1,892 | 4.316 | 46 |
| Lleida | Eric | 952 | 4.043 | 46 |
| Girona | Eric | 1,511 | 3.629 | 54 |
| Castellón/Castelló | Eric | 693 | 2.221 | 79 |
| Valencia/València | Eric | 2,046 | 1.512 | 98 |
Listed in 52 of Spain's 52 provinces. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Eric 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.