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The first name 
Esther

Esther is a female first name. In very rare cases it is also used for boys.

Esther – known and loved in the US!

The name Esther isn’t among the current fashionable names in our top 10 stats, but nonetheless, it’s still very popular and common. In our SmartGenius ranking of all girls names, Esther ranks 166. Recently, out of every 10,000 newborn girls, approximately 11 were named Esther. In the entire USA, approximately 222,837 people – children, adults and seniors – currently bear the name Esther. That is 0.07 % of all living Americans.

You won't believe all there is 
to discover about the name
 
Esther

What does the name 
Esther mean?

The Persian name Esther translates to ‘star’. It could be a derivative of the name of the Near Eastern goddess Ishtar.

What is a star? A star is a celestial object producing energy through nuclear fusion in its core. It is typically visible from Earth at night, appearing as a point of light in the sky.

Esther -
someone you can count on

Esther is the epitome of endurance. Every year since first names have been registered in the United States, parents have come up with the idea of naming their daughter Esther. This means that several girls named Esther have witnessed historic events such as the first Nobel Prize ceremony, the moon landing, the release of the first cell phone, or the turn of the millennium. The first name Esther has reached its highest rank of 28 numerous times, but that was long ago before the beginning of the last century, last time in 1897. Nevertheless, the name has been in the top 100 repeatedly. This makes Esther one of the most popular names of all time.

In years where the graph has no value, the name Esther was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.

Esther in 2022 – still a popular name

Esther will be Esther. Like every other year, there have been newborns named Esther in 2022 – in fact 2,060 to be precise, confirming Esther is still a popular first name. In this most recent year for which US-wide statistics are available, the name ranked #135 among all girls‘ names. For comparison, the least popular year for this first name was 1970, when only 726 baby girls were named Esther.

Esther -
well known in all states of the USA, most popular in North Dakota

There are only 537 different women’s names registered in every single state in the U.S., and Esther is one of them. However, Esther is not equally widespread in all states, but people in North Dakota seem to particularly fancy this name – the 2,352 women called Esther who live here are 0,451% of all female residents and push their name up to #44, easily placing it in the top 100 most common female names in North Dakota.

Esther has 6 letters 
and begins with an E

Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter E is neither particularly common nor particularly rare as a first letter for girls' names: 3.9% of all common girls' names in the US begin with this letter. The most common first letters of girls' names, by the way, are A, S and M, while U, X and Q are the least common initials of girls' names.

With six letters, the name Esther is of average length. In fact, 28% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly six letters. 24% of all first names are shorter, while 48% have seven letters or more. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long. There are no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.

That means that with 3.9%, E as the first letter in girls' names is almost as common as all 26 letters on average - and of all the girls' names that start with an E, Elizabeth is the most common.

Other names with 
E, s, t, h, e and r

If you take all the letters in the name Esther – E, s, t, h, e and r – and put them together again, you can form other names, such as Eshter or others.

With hands, flags and sounds 
How to say Esther

If your name is Esther and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...

This is how you spell the name Esther

So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Esther, you can simply say:

Elephant

Sun

Tiger

Hat

Elephant

Rocket

This is how the name Esther is spelled in the NATO phonetic alphabet

The NATO alphabet often helps people spell words on the phone or radio when there are communication problems.

How do you write Esther in Braille?

Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.

Esther

Esther

You want to tell a deaf person that your name is Esther

Just use American Sign Language!

The name Esther is particularly colorful in the Semaphore flag signaling system!

These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.

E
S
T
H
E
R

Have you ever waved the name Esther

In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.

E
S
T
H
E
R

Beeping like crazy...

In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Esther sounds like this: