Ernesta
About 244 American babies have been named Ernesta since 1915, most of them around 1918. It has not appeared in the national data since 1981. About 140 Ernestas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 55.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Ernesta
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 244
- Estimated living today
- 140
- Median age today
- 55
- Peak year
- 1918
- Best rank
- 2,519th
- Rank in 2025
- unranked
- First recorded
- 1915
How old the living Ernestas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 244 babies given the name since 1915, about 140 are alive — 58 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1970 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.
Names of 1918
The most popular girls’ names the year Ernesta peaked:
Ernesta elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France girls | Ernesta | 145 | 588th |
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.
Where Ernesta lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 218 women called Ernesta 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ourense | Ernesta | 13 | 0.082 | 778 |
| Pontevedra | Ernesta | 17 | 0.035 | 1,271 |
| Asturias | Ernesta | 12 | 0.023 | 1,777 |
| León | Ernesta | 5 | 0.022 | 1,822 |
| Navarra | Ernesta | 7 | 0.020 | 2,332 |
| Almería | Ernesta | 7 | 0.019 | 2,416 |
Listed in 13 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 39 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Ernesta 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.