Boy · Germanic, through Norman French
Bernard
Say it: bur-NARD
Meaning
From Germanic bern 'bear' and hart 'hard, brave'.
Certainscholars agree on this meaning.
Spread through two famous saints and was common in English and French in the early 20th century.
Its wave through time
Fading since the 1920s
In the United States
- 200,374 babies given this name since 1880
- At its height in 1922, about 1 in 247 boys
- 146 babies in 2020
Through the ages
- The High and Late Middle Ages1100 to 1450
- The Renaissance1400 to 1600
- Victorian and Belle Époque1837 to 1914
- The Modern Age1880 to today
Used by
The family of the name
Other spellings: Bernie, Barnard
| German | Bernhard |
|---|---|
| French | Bernard |
| Italian | Bernardo |
| Spanish | Bernardo |
| Dutch | Bernhard |
| Polish | Bernard |
Famous bearers
- Saint Bernard of Clairvaux
Names worth a look
Where this comes from
- Calendars of saints and name days
- English poll taxes and lay subsidy rolls (13th and 14th centuries)
- National census records of the 19th and 20th centuries
- The Domesday Book (1086) source
- Lives of the saints and early Christian martyrologies
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.
Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.