How Many People Are Named Fern?
people named Fern are alive in the United States today (estimate)
About 1 in 43,181 people in the US has this name
Based on 38,195 babies named Fern in Social Security records from 1880 to 2025, and the share of each birth year still alive in 2025.
Popularity Rank
💎💎 Very Rare
Peak Year
1,356 births
Trend
Stable (last 10 years)
📖 Name Origin & Meaning
Meaning:
From the English word for the plant, ultimately from Old English fearn. It has been used as a given name since the late 19th century.
Source of the meaning, origin, pronunciation and related names: Behind the Name.
Same Sound, Other Spellings
These names are pronounced like Fern in English. Counting Fern and these spellings together, about 8,387 people alive in the US have the name.
Related & Similar Names
⚧ Gender Distribution
Of the babies given the name Fern, 99.2% were girls and 0.8% were boys. The share has stayed close to this since the 1880s: 96.4% of the babies were girls then and 97.8% in the 2020s.
👥 Age Distribution
The average person named Fern alive today is about 58 years old, and 67% are 60 or older. Half of them were between 38 and 81 in 2025.
📈 Popularity Over Time
Fern first appears in the records in 1880 and was given most often in 1918, to 1,356 babies. In 2025, 186 babies got the name.
Babies given the name each year, 1880 to 2025
🏆 Rank History
Fern has never been one of the 100 most popular girls' names. Its best rank was #152, in 1916. In 2025 it ranked #1,220.
| Girls | |
|---|---|
| Rank in 2025 | #1,220 |
| Best rank | #152 (1916) |
| Years in the top 100 | None |
| Rank in its biggest decade | #197 in the 1920s |
📍 State-Wise Distribution
People named Fern alive today, by the state where they were born (estimate; state records start in 1910).
More people named Fern were born in New York than in any other state: about 970 of those alive today. Compared with the national rate in the same years, Fern was given 4.6 times as often in Utah, 4.3 times in Idaho and 4.1 times in North Dakota.
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