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Boy

Ernest

As a boy's name, Ernest traces back to Germanic, where it is understood to mean "Serious". It belongs mostly to the 1920s at this point. These days, it is familiar to most people. In total, about 288,035 American babies have carried this name since 1900.

GermanicSerious
GermanicEarnest, resolute
Births by decade
1900s
8,715
1910s
37,310
1920s
54,033
1930s
39,613
1940s
41,978
1950s
39,857
1960s
27,091
1970s
16,918
1980s
11,343
1990s
6,064
2000s
3,319
2010s
1,794
Peaked in the 1920s · 288,035 total U.S. births since 1900