Gerhart
A masculine compound name of Germanic origin meaning "hardy spear".
Name Census estimates that about 25 living Americans carry the first name Gerhart. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Gerhart today is around 79 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Gerhart births was 1915 (14 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Gerhart. 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.
Key insights
- • The typical person named Gerhart is about 79 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Gerharts were born before 1957.
- • Fewer than 100 living Americans are believed to carry the name Gerhart. It is among the rarest names in the SSA records.
People living today
25
~ 1 in 13,710,174 Americans
Peak year
1915
14 babies that year
Average age
79
years old
1963 SSA rank
#4,273
Tracked since 1912
Census
Gerhart in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 149 people with the first name Gerhart, which placed it at #45,514 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
#45,514
National first-name rank
People counted
149
149 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.0
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
84.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Gerhart
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Gerhart is White at 84.6%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (6.7%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (4.0%). 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 Gerhart 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 Gerhart at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White84.6% · 126
- Hispanic or Latino6.7% · 10
- Asian and Pacific Islander4.0% · 6
- Black or African American3.4% · 5
- Two or more races1.3% · 2
Popularity
Gerhart: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Gerhart from the 1910s through to the 1960s, spanning 6 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1910s, with 74 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1910s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Gerhart 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 Gerhart during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Gerharts live
Origin
Meaning and history of Gerhart
The given name Gerhart is of Germanic origin, derived from the Old High German elements "ger" meaning "spear" and "hart" meaning "hardy" or "brave". It can be traced back to the 8th century and was initially a compound name used by the Frankish people.
In its earliest recorded forms, the name appeared as "Gerhart" or "Gerhard" in various medieval texts and historical records from the Carolingian Dynasty and the Holy Roman Empire. It was a popular name among the nobility and warrior classes, reflecting the martial connotations of its meaning.
One of the earliest documented individuals with this name was Gerhart the Older, a Frankish nobleman who lived in the late 8th century and served as a Count under Charlemagne. Another notable bearer was Gerhart of Augsburg, a 10th-century Bishop and Saint in the Catholic Church.
During the Middle Ages, the name Gerhart gained widespread usage across Germanic regions, particularly in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. It was often associated with valor and strength, befitting the warrior culture of the time.
In the 11th century, Gerhart von Apolda, a German poet and historian, authored the famous "Life of St. Elizabeth" which chronicled the life of St. Elizabeth of Hungary. His work is considered a significant contribution to medieval German literature.
Another prominent figure was Gerhart Hauptmann (1862-1946), a German dramatist and novelist who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1912. He is renowned for his naturalistic plays and is considered one of the pioneers of modern German literature.
Other notable individuals with the name Gerhart include Gerhart Münch (1907-1988), a German conductor and violinist who had a prolific career, and Gerhart Ziller (1919-2008), an Austrian sculptor and artist known for his monumental public works.
While the name Gerhart has its roots in the Germanic cultural sphere, it has also been adopted and used in various other European countries over the centuries, although with varying degrees of popularity and spelling variations.
People
Gerhart + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Gerhart as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with G
Other first names starting with G with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Gerhart: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Gerhart?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 25 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Gerhart 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 13,710,174 US residents.
Is Gerhart a common name?
We classify Gerhart as "Very Rare". It ranks above 43.6% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 201 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Gerhart most popular?
The single biggest year for Gerhart was 1915, when 14 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Gerhart is about 79 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Gerhart in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 149 people with the name Gerhart, or 0.05 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #45,514 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 Gerhart 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 Gerhart?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Gerhart appears almost entirely male. Of the 148 people counted with this name, 99.3% 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 Gerhart?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Gerhart is White at 84.6%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (6.7%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (4.0%). 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 Gerhart most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Gerhart in the 2020 Census, accounting for 84.6% (126 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 Gerhart in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Gerhart a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Gerhart 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 Gerhart still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Gerhart 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 Gerhart 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 have Gerhart as a first name?
If you just want to know how many people have the name Gerhart, HowManyOfMe.org gives you the headline number in one glance.