Prentice
Masculine · “Old French aprentis”
Prentice is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 3,929 boys against 63 girls since 1880.
Prentice is apprentice with the front bitten off, and English does that constantly: an esquire became a squire, an estate became a state, an example became a sample, and alone became lone.
How old is the name Prentice?
Prentice first appears in US birth records in 1884 — 141 years ago. The typical Prentice alive today was born around 1960, making them about 65 years old. About 2,400 people named Prentice are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Prentice most popular?
Prentice peaked in 1939, reaching #784 nationally. Today it ranks #10695, 9,911 places below that high. See the whole 1939 chart.
Where it comes from
From aprentis to Prentice
The story of Prentice
The process has a name, aphesis, and it happens to unstressed vowels at the front of a word when speakers hear them as attached to the article or as unnecessary. English is full of the results: squire from esquire, state from estate, spy from espy, sample from example, cute from acute, mend from amend, lone from alone, fence from defense, and prentice from apprentice, which was common enough in Middle English to become a surname on its own. The reverse process also happens, adding a syllable that was never there. What makes aphesis worth noticing is that both forms usually survive with different meanings, so English ends up with pairs, estate and state, example and sample, that speakers no longer connect at all.
Meaning
Old French aprentis, one who is learning
From apprentice, from Old French aprentis, one learning a trade, with the unstressed first syllable lost. It became an occupational surname and then an American given name; the peak is 1939.
How the name formed
- aprentis
- prentice
- Prentice
Related forms: Prentiss
Pronouncing Prentice
PREN-tiss
Two syllables, stress on the first. Prentice and Prentiss are homophones.
Nicknames for Prentice
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
- 1884
- Most boys named
- 193960 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #784reached in 1939
- Change vs 2022
- 0.0%6 in 2025, 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.
Prentice in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Prentiss in English — spelling variant
Prentices among us
people named Prentice are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 284,679 born in 2025 was named Prentice
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Ishmael test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Prentice's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Ishmael climbed just as high around 1912, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Ishmael's path sketches the road Prentice is walking now.
Prentice sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Prentice beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Prentice in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Two syllables and eight letters, spelled as heard.
- The occupational meaning is documented and clear.
- Prent works as a short form.
- It reads as a surname to most Americans.
- Prentiss is an equally common spelling.
- The 1939 peak dates its use as a given name.
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What they receive
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Prentice
Masculine · #10695 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Prentices are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,400 people named Prentice are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Prentice in 2025?
- Prentice ranks #10695 among US boy names in 2025, with 6 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Prentice?
- About 1 in every 284,679 US boys born in 2025 was named Prentice — 6 in all.
- Will my child share the name Prentice with classmates?
- Prentice will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Prentice
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Dudley#10695 · Dell#10695 · Buford#10695 · Toney#10695 · Allison#10695 · Candido#10695 · Jodie#10695 · Nora#10695
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Prentice? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Prentice and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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