Eric is a boy's name of Scandinavian origin meaning “eternal ruler.” In 2024 it was given to 1,402 boys in the United States.
Eric at a glance
Gender
Boy name
Origin
Scandinavian
Meaning
“eternal ruler”
Pronunciation
/ˈɛɹɪk/
About the name Eric
Eric belongs to the Scandinavian tradition. Its meaning — “eternal ruler” — is the sense carried by its Scandinavian roots, and it is the meaning we verified against published sources for this page.
In the United States, Eric first appears in Social Security records in 1880. It climbed to its best-ever rank of #13 in 1973, and in 2024 1,402 babies received the name — 887,636 in total since 1880. Those are the official counts, not estimates.
Meaning and origin for this page were checked against this source. US popularity figures are from the Social Security Administration's public baby-names data. If you spot an error, write to [email protected] — accuracy is the whole point of this site, and corrections are made fast.