Ambrose
- Pronunciation
- [Am-brose]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Immortal
- Origin
- Greek
About the Name Ambrose
Ambrose derives from the Greek ambrosios, meaning "immortal" or "of the immortals," connected to ambrosia, the legendary food of the Greek gods said to confer eternal life. It is one of those venerable classical names that carries an air of antiquity and gravitas, long associated with saints, scholars, and the early Christian church, which adopted it as a name of distinction. The connection to immortality gives it a poetic, almost luminous quality beneath its sturdy classical surface.
The name pairs an ancient pedigree with a soft, melodic sound, and in recent years it has found new favor among parents seeking vintage boys' names with literary and ecclesiastical roots. Its blend of strength and refinement, along with its friendly short forms, gives it broad appeal for families who want something both traditional and distinctive. Like other dusty old names recently revived, Ambrose feels fresh again precisely because it had been out of fashion long enough to sound new.
Ambrose first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 2019, a marker of its modern revival, and reached its peak in 2021 at rank #670. It registered 345 births in 2024 at rank #741, with 320 in 2023 at #788 and 364 in 2022 at #721, showing it holding a comfortable place within the top-1000 after its recent debut. Recorded variants include Ambros, Ambrosio, Amby, and Emrys, ranging from the Latinate to the affectionate to the Welsh.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Ambrose
US Popularity History (2019–2025)
Annual US births named Ambrose by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2021 with 402 boys named Ambrose (boy rank #670 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #735 for boys (358 US births). That's 65 places below its 2021 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Ambrose Most Popular?
Average boy-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Ambrose the strongest states are New Mexico, Kansas, Oregon.
Strongest boys-name states
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New York | #987 | 50 |
| 2 | Florida | #932 | 61 |
| 3 | California | #843 | 148 |
| 4 | North Carolina | #834 | 67 |
| 5 | Georgia | #832 | 31 |
| 6 | Texas | #823 | 121 |
| 7 | Pennsylvania | #750 | 77 |
| 8 | Tennessee | #708 | 48 |
| 9 | Arizona | #694 | 61 |
| 10 | Louisiana | #691 | 19 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Ambrose in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
Looking for names like Ambrose?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Ambrose to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Ambrose against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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