Eric

/ˈɛɹ.ɪk/

The name Eric descends from the Old Norse Eiríkr, a compound of ei or ein (“ever, always, 1, alone”) and ríkr (“ruler, mighty, powerful”), yielding the literal sense “ever-ruler,” “sole ruler,” or “eternal king.” The second element shares a root with

US Rank

No. 251

Births

1,402

Peak Year

1976

the Latin rex, the Celtic ríg, and the Sanskrit rājā, all tracing to the Proto-Indo-European *h₃rēǵs, “king.” The name was carried across the North Sea by the Viking expansions of the eighth through eleventh centuries.

The most famous medieval bearer is Erik the Red (c. 950-1003), the Icelandic explorer who founded the first Norse settlements in Greenland around 985, and whose son Leif Erikson reached the North American coast at Vinland around the year 1000.

What the name Eric means

Eleven kings of Sweden and several kings of Denmark and Norway bore the name, including Eric IX of Sweden (d. 1160), later venerated as the patron saint of Stockholm and commemorated in the Swedish coat of arms.

In Swedish folklore Erik became the archetypal king’s name, and the royal Erikskrönikan chronicle of the 14th century celebrates the Erik dynasty.

Literary bearers include the protagonist of Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera (1910), whose real name is given as Erik, and the children’s classic Erik and the Phantom by Fritjof Nilsson Piraten. Eric Blair adopted the pen name George Orwell.

U.S. Social Security records place Eric in the top 1000 from 1880 onward, entering the top 100 in 1956 and peaking at rank 13 in 1973 and 1974.

More than a million American boys received the name between 1950 and 2000. It has gently declined since the 1990s but remains inside the top 200.

Contemporary bearers include guitarist Eric Clapton, NBA player Eric Gordon, novelist Eric Carle, and Monty Python co-founder Eric Idle. Variants include the German and Scandinavian Erik, the Hungarian Erik, and the feminine forms Erica and Erika.