Lester
- Pronunciation
- [Les-ter]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Fortified Place.
- Origin
- English
About the Name Lester
Lester is an English surname-turned-given-name derived from Leicester, the English city whose name traces to the Latin Ligore Ceaster — a Roman fortified settlement (ceaster, from Latin castra, "military camp") on the River Leir. The sense of "fortified place" captures both the Roman military origin and the topographic identity of the place-name. Multiple English aristocratic and gentry families bore the Lester surname, and the name migrated into given-name use during the nineteenth century as part of the well-established Anglo-American fashion for place-names and surnames as first names.
Lester appears in the US Social Security top-1000 from 1886 and reached its best rank of #52 in 1906. Among its noted bearers is Lester Bangs, an American music journalist widely regarded as one of the most influential rock critics of the 1970s, known for his writing during that era. Also notable is Lester B. Pearson, the 14th Prime Minister of Canada, who served from 1963 to 1968 and remains one of the most consequential diplomats his country has produced. The name last appeared in the top-1000 in 1931 at rank #96, its active period concentrated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Lester carries the honest, workmanlike quality of a vintage topographic surname name with a distinguished roster of bearers. The recorded variant Leicester reflects the name's direct place-name source.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Lester
US Popularity History (1886–1931)
Annual US births named Lester by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1918 with 3,229 boys named Lester (boy rank #62 that year).
Where it stands today: in 1931, ranked #96 for boys (1,919 US births). That's 34 places below its 1918 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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Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leicester | From Leicester | Male | English |
Famous People Named Lester
2 notable figures from history and culture who share the name Lester.
- Lester B. Pearson was the 14th Prime Minister of Canada.
- Lester Bangs was a renowned American music journalist, musician and author.
Looking for names like Lester?
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 Lester to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Lester against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).