Ulrich
Masculine · “Ruler of the inherited estate”
Ulrich is one of the oldest German names still in use, and its first element is a word English lost: uodal is the inherited estate, the land that has been in the family, and the name means the man who rules it. It is heritage and authority in two syllables.
How old is the name Ulrich?
Ulrich first appears in US birth records in 1914 — 111 years ago. The typical Ulrich alive today was born around 2000, making them about 25 years old. About 400 people named Ulrich are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Ulrich most popular?
Ulrich peaked in 1959, reaching #2414 nationally. Today it ranks #5399, 2,985 places below that high. See the whole 1959 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Uodalrich to Ulrich
The story of Ulrich
Ulrich of Augsburg, bishop from 923 to 973, defended his city against the Magyars and in 993 became the first person ever formally canonized by a pope — before him, saints were made by local acclamation. That made his name ordinary across the German-speaking lands, and it has been in continuous use in Germany, Austria and especially Switzerland ever since; Huldrych Zwingli, the Zurich reformer, carried a form of it. German and Swiss immigration brought it to America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with a modest peak in the 1950s, and it has never been common in English-speaking countries.
Meaning
Ruler of the inherited estate
From Old High German Uodalrich, from uodal, ancestral property or heritage, and rīhhi, ruler or powerful. The reading is settled and both elements are documented. The same uodal appears in Ulrike and in the runic name of the letter othala; the same rīhhi in Friedrich, Heinrich and Dietrich.
How the name formed
- Uodalrich
- Ulrich
Related forms: Ulrich · Ueli · Ulrik · Ulrik · Oldřich · Ulric
Pronouncing Ulrich
OOL-rikh
Two syllables, stress on the first. The German ch is a throat fricative English does not have, and American speakers say OOL-rick with a plain k. The u is a long oo, not the English short u.
Nicknames for Ulrich
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
- 1914
- Most boys named
- 202517 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2414reached in 1959
- Change vs 2024
- +112.5%17 in 2025, from 8
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.
Ulrich in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ulrich in German — same name
- Ueli in Swiss German — related form
- Ulrik in Danish — spelling variant
- Ulrik in Swedish — spelling variant
- Oldřich in Czech — related form
- Ulric in French — related form
Ulrichs among us
people named Ulrich are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 100,475 born in 2025 was named Ulrich
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 Alanson test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Ulrich's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Alanson climbed just as high around 1927, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Alanson's path sketches the road Ulrich is walking now.
Ulrich 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
Ulrich beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Ulrich in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is settled and connects to a genuinely interesting historical first.
- Uli works as a warm short form.
- It is spelled the same across German-speaking Europe.
- The final ch is not an English sound and will be flattened to k.
- The opening vowel is regularly said as an English u, giving UL-rick.
- It is unfamiliar in English-speaking countries and will be spelled out.
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What they receive
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Ulrich
Masculine · #5399 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Ulrichs 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 Ulrich are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Ulrich in 2025?
- Ulrich ranks #5399 among US boy names in 2025, with 17 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Ulrich?
- About 1 in every 100,475 US boys born in 2025 was named Ulrich — 17 in all.
- Will my child share the name Ulrich with classmates?
- Ulrich will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Ulrich
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Frazier#5399 · Franz#5399 · Demetrio#5399 · Rolan#5399 · Rayvon#5399 · Riddick#5399 · Laramie#5399 · Soloman#5399
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Ulrich? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Ulrich and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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