Erle
Masculine · “An earl”
Erle takes an English rank, drops a letter and adds a silent one, and the result belongs to the man who wrote more novels than almost any American and invented a lawyer who never loses a case.
How old is the name Erle?
Erle first appears in US birth records in 1882 — 143 years ago. The typical Erle alive today was born around 1933, making them about 92 years old. About 300 people named Erle are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Erle most popular?
Erle peaked in 1891, reaching #766 nationally. See the whole 1891 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Earl to Erle
The story of Erle
Erle Stanley Gardner was a working lawyer before he was a writer and wrote at a speed that is hard to believe — dictating, at his peak, a novel every few weeks, with more than a hundred books about one defense attorney who wins every case he takes. He also ran a real project for years, investigating convictions he thought were wrong and getting a number of people released. The name he carried is an American invention twice over: an English title that only Americans gave to children, in a spelling that only Americans used, attached to a man whose output was itself an American phenomenon.
Meaning
An earl — a nobleman
The word is the English title, from an Old English word for a nobleman, and it became a first name in America in a way it never did in England. The respelling here changes nothing about the sense.
How the name formed
- Earl
- Erle
Pronouncing Erle
URL
One syllable. The silent e does nothing but mark the spelling as a name rather than a rank.
Nicknames for Erle
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1882
- Most boys named
- 191728 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #766reached in 1891
- Change vs 1974
- 0.0%5 in 1981, from 5
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Erles among us
people named Erle are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Erle sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- It is short, firm and read correctly on sight.
- The spelling distinguishes it from an ordinary English noun.
- It has a genuinely prolific namesake.
- Earl is the standard spelling and his will be written that way.
- The word is a rank in Britain, which British readers will hear.
- The name belongs to an older American generation.
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Erle
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Erles are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 300 people named Erle are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Erle in 2025?
- Erle is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Erle with classmates?
- Erle will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More E names
The most-given names starting with E, all years combined.
Edward#224 · Eric#273 · Ethan#24 · Eugene#943 · Elijah#7 · Ernest#1038 · Earl#2230 · Evan#153
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Erle? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Erle and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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