Vern
A masculine name of French origin meaning "alder tree".
Name Census estimates that about 4,160 living Americans carry the first name Vern. It is a predominantly male name (95.9% of registrations). The average person named Vern today is around 69 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Vern births was 1920 (282 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Vern. 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
- • Although Vern is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 485 girls registered with the name since 1880.
- • The typical person named Vern is about 69 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Verns were born before 1967.
People living today
4.2K
~ 1 in 82,393 Americans
Peak year
1920
282 babies that year
Average age
69
years old
2024 SSA rank
#7,965
Tracked since 1880
Census
Vern in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 5,704 people with the first name Vern, which placed it at #3,589 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
#3,589
National first-name rank
People counted
5.7K
5,704 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
1.9
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
82.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Vern
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Vern is White at 82.6%. The next largest groups are Black (8.0%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (2.7%). 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 Vern 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 Vern at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White82.6% · 4,714
- Black or African American8.0% · 458
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.7% · 156
- American Indian and Alaska Native2.5% · 145
- Two or more races2.3% · 130
- Hispanic or Latino1.8% · 101
Gender
Gender distribution for Vern
Vern leans heavily male at 95.9% of total registrations, but 485 girls have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Vern as a male name
- Ranked #12,205 in 2024
- 6 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1920 (274 births)
Vern as a female name
- Ranked #7,965 in 1970
- 6 female births in 1970
- Peak: 1918 (18 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Vern leans strongly male. 5,488 people counted with this name were male (96.2%), compared with 219 female bearers (3.8%).
Popularity
Vern: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Vern 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 2,477 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
Vern 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 Vern during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Verns live
The SSA's state-level files cover 28 states and territories. Michigan, California, Iowa recorded the most babies named Vern, while New Mexico, Hawaii, Florida recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 266 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Vern
The name Vern is a shortened form of the French name Vernon, which is derived from the Celtic word "fern," meaning "alder tree." The name has its origins in the ancient Gaulish language spoken by the Celtic tribes that inhabited present-day France and parts of Western Europe during the Iron Age.
Vernon was initially used as a place name, referring to settlements located near alder groves or along rivers where alder trees grew abundantly. One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Vernon can be found in the Domesday Book, a comprehensive survey of land ownership and taxation commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1086.
The name Vern gained popularity as a given name during the Middle Ages, particularly in England and France. One of the earliest known historical figures to bear the name was Vern Gallon, a French nobleman who lived in the 12th century and was a loyal supporter of King Louis VII.
In literature, the name Vern appears in Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales," written in the late 14th century. One of the characters, a wealthy merchant, is referred to as Vern Attewode, a name that combines the given name with a reference to his occupation in the wood trade.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Vern. One of the most famous was Vern Michels (1928-2018), an American football coach who led the Green Bay Packers to two consecutive Super Bowl victories in the 1960s.
Another prominent figure was Vern Mikkelsen (1928-2019), a basketball player and coach who won four NBA championships with the Minneapolis Lakers in the 1940s and 1950s. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1995.
In the field of literature, Vern Partlow (1901-1987) was an acclaimed American poet and novelist known for his works that explored the lives of working-class people in the American Midwest. His novel "The Farmer's Son" was a bestseller in the 1940s.
Vern Blasdell (1924-2005) was a renowned Canadian artist and sculptor, best known for his large-scale public art installations and his contributions to the development of modernist sculpture in Canada.
Lastly, Vern Blosum (1891-1976) was a notable American engineer who played a pivotal role in the construction of the Hoover Dam in the 1930s, one of the most ambitious and iconic engineering projects of the 20th century.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Vern
People
Vern + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Vern as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with V
Other first names starting with V with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Vern: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Vern?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 4,160 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Vern 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 82,393 US residents.
Is Vern a common name?
We classify Vern as "Rare". It ranks above 96.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 11,975 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Vern most popular?
The single biggest year for Vern was 1920, when 282 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Vern is about 69 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Vern in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 5,704 people with the name Vern, or 1.89 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #3,589 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 Vern 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 Vern?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Vern leans strongly male. 5,488 people counted with this name were male (96.2%), compared with 219 female bearers (3.8%). 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 Vern?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Vern is White at 82.6%. The next largest groups are Black (8.0%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (2.7%). 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 Vern most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Vern in the 2020 Census, accounting for 82.6% (4,714 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 Vern in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Vern a male name?
Yes, 95.9% of people registered as Vern 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 Vern still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Vern 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 Vern 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 Vern?
You can see how many people have the name Vern on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — same data roots, lighter UI.