Earnest

Where Earnest comes from

The dictionaries list Earnest as a given name — a male given name from the Germanic languages, of occasional usage, variant of Ernest — but don't trace where it came from. The record below is what the SSA data shows.

  • Germanic
Along the way
  1. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #154 among boys — 88 babies in the first year on record.
  2. 1887
    Earnest Hooton born
    American anthropologist
  3. 1900
    Peak, #104
    223 babies named Earnest — more than any year before or since.
  4. 1962
    Earnest Byner born
    American football player
  5. 1993
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #1,163.
In the dictionary
  • A male given name from the Germanic languages, of occasional usage, variant of Ernest.
Namesakes
  • Earnest Hooton · American anthropologist, 1887–1954
  • Earnest Byner · American football player, born 1962
  • Earnest Graham · American football player, running back, born 1980
  • Earnest Ross · American/Guamanian basketball player, born 1991
  • Earnest Brown IV · American football defensive lineman, born 1999

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.