Erma
Erma is a girl's name that peaked in 1920, when it was the 152nd most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 5,238th. About 13,000 Ermas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 76.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Erma boys named Erma
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 55,187
- Estimated living today
- 13,000
- Median age today
- 76
- Peak year
- 1920
- Best rank
- 152nd
- Rank in 2025
- 5,238th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 54,949 / 238
How old the living Ermas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 55,187 babies given the name since 1880, about 13,000 are alive — 23 in every hundred. Roughly 340 of them are children and 9,700 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1949 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
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Ermas
- Erma Bombeck (1927–1996)American humorist and writer
- Erma Franklin (1938–2002)American musician, gospel and soul singer
People named Erma with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Erma is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Erma is most concentrated in Arkansas (5.4×), West Virginia (3.3×), Mississippi (3.1×), Oklahoma (2.9×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1920
The most popular girls’ names the year Erma peaked:
Related names
Erma 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.