Given name & surname
Ernst
“one who is sincere and determined; serious”
Ernst is a variant of Ernest. One English interpretation is “one who is sincere and determined; serious.”
Meaning & origin
What it means
Ernst is a variant of Ernest. One English interpretation is “one who is sincere and determined; serious.”
Explained through its name family
Where it comes from
Ernst is a variant of Ernest. Ernest has been associated with Germanic and Old High German naming traditions.
Explained through its name family
How it developed
From German Ernst, from Old High German ernust (“vigor, strife”), from Proto-Germanic *ernustuz.
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1880. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Ernst through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 2,383
- 2,383 boys · 0 girls
- Most popular year
- 1917
- 59 babies
- 2025
- 0
- Outside the ranked list
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- —
- Too few births to compare
By the numbers
The most recent published U.S. birth count for boys is 5 in 2021. Later missing counts do not mean the name went unused. Its largest published annual count for boys was 59 in 1917. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 2,686 as a first name in 2020; 17,888 as a surname in 2020.
From Social Security birth records and U.S. Census name counts for this exact spelling. Other spellings are counted separately.
Ernst’s family of names
In Estonian usage, Ernst has a short form in Erno. Ernst shares a linguistic root with Ernest. In German usage, Ernst has a conventional equivalent in the Spanish form Ernesto.
Inner ring: spellings · middle: nicknames and forms · outer: across languages.
Around the world
Ernst has relatives in 21 languages.
32 related names in 21 languages. Point at a dot, or tab to the map and use the arrow keys.
Nicknames & forms 23
Diminutives, pet forms, short forms and variants used alongside the name.
- Ernestovariant · German, Spanish
- Ernestvariant · German, Polish
- Ernoshort form · Estonian, German
- Ernistvariant · German
- Ernitsvariant · Estonian
- Ernishort form · Estonian
- Ernestivariant · German, Finnish
- Errensvariant · German
Show 15 moreShow fewer
- Ernstingvariant · German
- Ernestusvariant · German, Latin
- Eernstmanvariant · German
- Eerninkvariant · German
- Aschtovariant · German
- Arnstvariant · German
- Arnestvariant · German
- Ernstldiminutive · German
- Ornstvariant · German
- Nernstvariant · German
- Hastigvariant · German
- Harnischvariant · German
- Harningvariant · German
- Harnaschvariant · German
- Harnackvariant · German
Spellings & scripts 4
The same name written differently, including transliterations into other scripts.
Across languages 7
Equivalents and cognates in other languages, plus older forms it grew from.
People named Ernst
- Ingmar BergmanSwedish director and screenwriter (1918–2007)
- Ernst HaeckelGerman zoologist (1834-1919)
- E. T. A. HoffmannGerman writer (1776-1822)
- Ernst MachAustrian physicist (1838–1916)
- Wim WendersGerman filmmaker (born 1945)
- Ernst RuskaGerman physicist (1906–1988)
- Ernst Ludwig KirchnerGerman painter, sculptor, engraver and printmaker (1880–1938)
- Ernst JüngerGerman writer (1895–1998)
- Werner von SiemensGerman electrical engineer, inventor and industrialist (1816–1892)
Characters named Ernst: Ernst Stavro Blofeld (fictional James Bond villain).
Listed by how widely each person is written about, which says nothing about the name itself.
Appears in
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