Esther
Esther is a girl's name that peaked in 1918, when it was the 38th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 119th. About 103,000 Esthers are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 39.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Esther boys named Esther
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 272,206
- Estimated living today
- 103,000
- Median age today
- 39
- Peak year
- 1918
- Best rank
- 38th
- Rank in 2025
- 119th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 271,234 / 972
How old the living Esthers are
born that year still alive today
Of the 272,206 babies given the name since 1880, about 103,000 are alive — 38 in every hundred. Roughly 31,000 of them are children and 31,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1986 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 Persian
From Ancient Greek Ἐσθήρ, from Biblical Hebrew אֶסְתֵּר. Has been connected to peo 𐎠𐎿𐎫𐎼 (“star”) (whence pal 𐭮𐭲𐭫, 𐭮𐭲𐭠𐭫𐭪 (“star”), Persian ستاره), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂stḗr (if so, a distant); or else to Akkadian Ištar (Hebrew עִשְׁתָּר).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Esthers
- Esther Duflo (born 1972)French-American economist
- Esther Williams (1921–2013)American swimmer, actress and singer
- Esther Brand (1922–2015)South African former athlete
- Esther Vilar (born 1935)Argentine writer
- Esther Lederberg (1922–2006)American microbiologist and pioneer of bacterial genetics
- Esther Vergeer (born 1981)Dutch wheelchair tennis player
- Esther Rolle (1920–1998)actress
- Esther Ofarim (born 1941)Israeli singer
People named Esther with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Esther is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Esther is most concentrated in North Dakota (3.0×), South Dakota (2.2×), New York (1.7×), Nebraska (1.6×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1918
The most popular girls’ names the year Esther peaked:
Esther elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France girls | Esther | 19,165 | 196th |
| England and Wales girls | Esther | 9,104 | 141st |
| Spain girls | Esther | 4,806 | 54th |
| Denmark girls | Esther | 3,652 | 15th |
| Belgium girls | Esther | 1,810 | 144th |
| Ireland girls | Esther | 1,242 | 101st |
| Norway girls | Esther | 1,133 | 163rd |
| Italy girls | Esther | 779 | — |
| Scotland girls | Esther | 593 | 180th |
| Switzerland girls | Esther | 351 | 277th |
| New Zealand girls | Esther | 223 | 79th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Esther | 111 | 180th |
| France boys | Esther | 110 | 1,670th |
| Poland girls | Esther | 46 birth registrations | 391st |
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.
Esther: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Esther | 185 | 0.015% | 339th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Esther | 160 | 0.037% | 162nd |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Esther | 6 | 0.009% | 110th |
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, Esther is most concentrated in Geneva, where 0.05% of children were given it – 55 of them.
Esther: rank by region
In 2025, Esther was given 5 times or more in 3 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Esther | 262 | 21 |
| Wallonia | Esther | 300 | 9 |
| Brussels | Esther | 159 | 7 |
In 2015, Esther was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Esther | 10 | 1 |
In 2020, Esther was given 2 times or more in 1 region of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mazowieckie | Esther | 266 | 2 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Esther appears in the lists for Province of Flemish Brabant (147th), Brussels-Capital Region (159th) and Province of Antwerp (243rd).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy 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.
Esther by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 80 | 193rd |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Esther 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 girls | Esther | 33,429 | 41,416 |
| Finland girls | Esther | 223 | 493 |
| the Netherlands boys | Esther | — | 185 |
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 Esther lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 71,876 women called Esther 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Soria | Esther | 210 | 4.735 | 35 |
| Palencia | Esther | 374 | 4.681 | 44 |
| Teruel | Esther | 307 | 4.600 | 40 |
| Burgos | Esther | 811 | 4.476 | 46 |
| Valladolid | Esther | 1,149 | 4.236 | 49 |
| Segovia | Esther | 331 | 4.199 | 45 |
Listed in 52 of Spain's 52 provinces. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Esther 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.