Lester
Feminine · “Roman camp on the Legra”
Lester is given to boys far more often — 130,688 boys against 1,359 girls since 1880. See Lester as a boy name
Lester is a Roman camp. The -cester and -chester at the end of English town names is the Latin word for a fortified camp, borrowed by the English from the ruins they found and stuck onto the front half of whatever the place had been called before. A name ending that way is a note that the Romans were there.
How old is the name Lester?
Lester first appears in US birth records in 1886 — 139 years ago. The typical Lester alive today was born around 1928, making them about 97 years old. About 400 people named Lester are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Lester most popular?
Lester peaked in 1905, reaching #872 nationally. See the whole 1905 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From A Latin word for a fortified camp to Lester
The story of Lester
The town was one of the five boroughs of the Danelaw. When the Danish armies settled the east midlands in the ninth century they organized the territory around five fortified towns, each with its own army and its own assembly, and the five together made a political unit that outlasted the Danish kingdom itself. The law of that area stayed different from English law for generations, the place names in it are still Norse, and the counties drawn around the five boroughs are the counties on the map today. The name is therefore a Roman military term, in an English mouth, attached to a British river, governing a Danish borough, which is about as much of the country's history as four syllables can hold.
Meaningscholars disagree
Roman camp on the Legra
The second element is secure: it is the Latin word for a camp, taken into English early and used for old Roman sites. The first element is not: it has been read as the name of a river and as the name of a people who lived on it, and the two proposals cannot be separated on the evidence.
How the name formed
- A Latin word for a fortified camp
- Borrowed by the English for Roman sites
- One of the five boroughs of the Danelaw
- A surname, and then an American first name
Pronouncing Lester
LES-ter
Two syllables, stress on the first. The English town this comes from is spelled with four more letters than it says, and the American name is simply that pronunciation written down.
Nicknames for Lester
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
- 1886
- Most girls named
- 192237 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #872reached in 1905
- Change vs 1980
- 0.0%6 in 1985, from 6
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.
Lesters among us
people named Lester 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
Lester 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, clear and needs no coaching from anybody.
- Les and Lee are two well-established short forms.
- It carries a genuine and unusually layered piece of English history.
- It is strongly associated with an early twentieth-century generation.
- The meaning is a place rather than a quality, which some families want.
- The spelling appears on the register for both sexes in small numbers.
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What they receive
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Lester
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Lesters are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 400 people named Lester are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Lester in 2025?
- Lester is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Lester with classmates?
- Lester will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More L names
The most-given names starting with L, all years combined.
Linda#902 · Lisa#987 · Laura#379 · Lauren#401 · Lillian#57 · Lori#1721 · Louise#514 · Lois#1666
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Lester? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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