Ervin
A name of Germanic origin meaning "whole" or "complete".
Name Census estimates that about 16,880 living Americans carry the first name Ervin. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Ervin today is around 56 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Ervin births was 1921 (865 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Ervin. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Ervin with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Ervin is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 138 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
17K
~ 1 in 20,305 Americans
Peak year
1921
865 babies that year
Average age
56
years old
2024 SSA rank
#1,935
Tracked since 1880
Census
Ervin in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 16,447 people with the first name Ervin, which placed it at #1,803 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#1,803
National first-name rank
People counted
16K
16,447 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
5.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
49.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Ervin
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Ervin is White at 49.6%. The next largest groups are Black (29.0%) and Hispanic (15.7%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Ervin described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Ervin at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White49.6% · 8,151
- Black or African American29.0% · 4,771
- Hispanic or Latino15.7% · 2,583
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.2% · 370
- Two or more races1.8% · 288
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.7% · 284
Gender
Gender distribution for Ervin
Out of the 39,018 babies given the name Ervin since 1880, 99.6% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Ervin as a male name
- Ranked #1,935 in 2024
- 81 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1921 (859 births)
Ervin as a female name
- Ranked #13,648 in 1990
- 5 female births in 1990
- Peak: 1920 (9 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Ervin appears almost entirely male. Of the 16,457 people counted with this name, 99.7% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Ervin: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Ervin from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 7,638 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1920s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Ervin by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Ervin during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Ervins live
The SSA's state-level files cover 43 states and territories. Wisconsin, North Carolina, Texas recorded the most babies named Ervin, while District of Columbia, Vermont, Massachusetts recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 760 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Ervin
The name Ervin is of German origin, deriving from the Old Germanic elements "arn," meaning eagle, and "wine," meaning friend. It first emerged in the Middle Ages, around the 9th or 10th century AD, as a personal name among German-speaking populations in central Europe.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Ervin can be found in the Codex Traditionum Westfalicarium, a medieval manuscript from the 9th century that documents legal transactions and property transfers in the region of Westphalia, modern-day Germany. The name appears as "Aruuinus," an early variant spelling.
In the 12th century, the name Ervin surfaced in the Nibelungenlied, a renowned German epic poem that recounts legends of dragon-slayers and Rhine River heroes. One of the minor characters in the tale bears the name Erwin, a close variant of Ervin.
Throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance period, the name Ervin remained predominantly used in German-speaking regions, though it also spread to neighboring areas. Notable historical figures who bore this first name include Ervin of Steinbach, a 13th-century German architect and stonemason who oversaw the construction of the iconic Strasbourg Cathedral in modern-day France.
In the 16th century, Ervin Bodecker, a German theologian and reformer, played a role in the Protestant Reformation, publishing works that criticized the practices of the Catholic Church at the time. He lived from 1497 to 1553.
During the 18th century, Ervin Sándor, a Hungarian nobleman and military officer, distinguished himself in battles against the Ottoman Empire, serving under the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI. He was born in 1690 and died in 1768.
Another notable bearer of the name was Ervin Bauer, an Austrian painter and illustrator active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was renowned for his landscape paintings and illustrations in children's books, living from 1857 to 1925.
People
Ervin + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Ervin as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with E
Other first names starting with E with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Ervin: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Ervin?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 16,880 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Ervin going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 20,305 US residents.
Is Ervin a common name?
We classify Ervin as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98.3% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 39,018 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Ervin most popular?
The single biggest year for Ervin was 1921, when 865 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Ervin is about 56 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Ervin in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 16,447 people with the name Ervin, or 5.45 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,803 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Ervin in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Ervin?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Ervin appears almost entirely male. Of the 16,457 people counted with this name, 99.7% were male and only a very small share were female. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Ervin?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Ervin is White at 49.6%. The next largest groups are Black (29.0%) and Hispanic (15.7%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Ervin most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Ervin in the 2020 Census, accounting for 49.6% (8,151 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Ervin in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Ervin a male name?
Yes, 99.6% of people registered as Ervin in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Ervin still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Ervin in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Ervin can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people are called Ervin?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.