Ember
Meaning
burning coal
The story
Ember is a word name that broke the word-name rules. Most vocabulary names spike the decade fashion finds them; Ember instead built slowly for four straight decades, about 290 girls in the 1970s, 460, 630, then 1,600 in the 2000s, before the leap to 8,800 in the 2010s and 11,200 so far this decade, already past the full 2010s. The quiet story is the handoff. Amber, its near-twin, owned an era, more than 154,000 girls in the 1980s alone; this decade the torch has passed, with Embers outnumbering new Ambers roughly 11,200 to 3,400. One vowel swap took a name from mall-era to modern. The word means the coal that keeps burning after the flame, which is about as good a metaphor as the naming dictionary sells. In our records Ember goes mostly to girls, about 22,600 to 430.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Ember peaked in the 2020s.
When you meet Ember
Most people given the name Ember in the United States are children or teenagers today. The name belongs to this generation.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Ember deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Ember truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Ember fits with your family’s names and surname.
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