Etymology & Historical Origin of the Baby Name Ezra

Ezra is a name that comes to us from the Bible. He was an important Jewish leader and the author of a book in the Old Testament that bears his name. In Hebrew, Ezra means "help" and this makes sense, you see, because not only was Ezra a priest, he was also a scribe. After the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem in 586 B.C. they destroyed Israel’s temple and library. Any and all surviving scrolls were amassed and taken by Jerusalem’s exiles to Babylonia. Guess who got most of the credit for helping to compile, edit, and add to these Scriptures? You guessed it…Ezra. His work helped complete what we now know as the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. In 539 B.C. the Babylonians got a little taste of their own medicine because the Persians conquered this unpopular empire and generously invited the exiled Jews back to Judah to rebuild God’s Temple. Many Jews were firmly established in Mesopotamia and Babylonia by this time, so only a small minority of them returned to Jerusalem. Ezra would return in 458 B.C. to help reestablish God’s word. As an expert on ancient Israeli legal code, he was disheartened to discover the people had little understanding of their religious heritage. Ezra basically became their leader and went about instituting reforms, ending intermarriages, and effectively changing the Jewish government from a monarchy to a theocracy. In other words, Ezra was one important ancient dude, particularly among the Jewish people. While Ezra has often been thought of as primarily a Jewish name, the Puritans adopted the name during the Protestant Reformation.

All About the Baby Name – Ezra

Personality

OF THE BOY NAME EZRA

The number Five personality loves the excitement of life and can easily adapt to all situations. As natural adventurers, these personalities thrive on the new and unexpected and prefer to be in constant motion. It makes them feel alive. They'll stir up some action if there's not enough around, and as inherent risk-takers they enjoy pushing the envelope. Naturally rebellious, the Five personality has no fear and never resists change.  Traveling and new experiences feed their souls. Fives are very social and attract friends with ease. People love to be around the Five fun-loving and exciting energy.  This is also a lucky number in numerology (like the Threes), so fortune seems to shine on them, helped along by their own optimism and good-nature. Fives have a quick wit, a cerebral mind, and are generally very persuasive. 

Popularity

OF THE BOY NAME EZRA

Ezra has never experienced any substantial popularity in America, but it has stayed on the charts consistently since the U.S. government began tracking naming trends in 1880. Than name was most popular in the late 19th century, but then dwindled in usage during most of the 20th century. Ezra reached a low-point in popularity during the 1960s when the name was barely used at all. It hasn’t exactly reached the heights of the charts, but today it has managed to reclaim the same level of success it saw in the 1880s. Ezra is definitely an “old man” sounding name. Like the kind of guy you might run into at a Bingo game. But that’s just part of his charm. Old man names haven’t experienced the same trendiness as the “old lady” names in today’s naming practices, but they are slowly making a return (Henry, Oscar, George, Omar, Leo, Edwin, Edgar, and Theodore are some that come to mind). As a central Biblical figure, Ezra was important to both the Jews and the Christians, but particularly within the Jewish community. The name does have religious crossover appeal. But it also has general appeal. This baby boy is destined to become mother’s little "helper."

Quick Facts

ON EZRA

GENDER:

Boy

ORIGIN:

Hebrew

NUMBER OF SYLLABLES:

2

RANKING POPULARITY:

143

PRONUNCIATION:

EHZ-ra

SIMPLE MEANING:

Help

Characteristics

OF EZRA

Freedom-loving

Adventurous

Adaptable

Intellectual

Easygoing

Progressive

Sensual

Cultural References to the Baby Name – Ezra

Literary Characters

OF THE BABY NAME EZRA

Ezra Collig is the Chief of Police in Bayport, the fictional town where The Hardy Boys operate, in the popular series begun in 1927 by the Stratemeyer Syndicate and written under the collective pseudonym of Franklin W. Dixon. Early in the series, Ezra and his fellow police officers, Con Riley and Oscar Smuff, come across as a kind of bumbling trio of Keystone Kops, which drew some concern over whether children might be encouraged to see authority figures as objects of ridicule. Not to worry. They are miraculously elevated to serious, kindly upholders of the law and guides for the young boys to look up to. Well, almost…Ezra still seems to get a little defensive when a couple of teen-agers best him at his detecting job, but then again, he asks for it. He often works with the boys and with their father, Fenton Hardy, and relies upon their obviously superior skills, but still seems to resent them just a teeny bit! Well, wouldn’t you?

Childrens Books

ON THE BABY NAME EZRA

We cannot find any childrens books with the first name Ezra


Popular Songs

ON EZRA

We cannot find any popular or well-known songs with the name of Ezra


Famous People

NAMED EZRA

Ezra Pound (poet)
Ezra Cornell (founder of Cornell University)
Ezra Miller (actor)
Ezra Butler (football player)
Ezra Hendrickson (soccer player)
Ezra Midkiff (baseball player)
Ezra Sutton (baseball player)
Ezra Fitch (co-founder of Abercrombie & Fitch)
Ezra Meeker (pioneer)
Ezra Stiles (educator and former President of Yale)

Children of Famous People

NAMED EZRA

We cannot find any children of famous people with the first name Ezra

Historic Figures

WITH THE NAME EZRA

Ezra (Weston Loomis) Pound was a major modern American poet who lived from 1885 to 1972, and was enormously controversial due to his support of Fascism during World War II and his widely disseminated anti-Semitic views. He came from an impeccable line of Puritan forbears, but spent most of his life abroad, in England, France and Italy, where he died and is buried. As a co-founder of the Imagist movement, which sought to move away from the floridity of Victorian and Edwardian verse to a stronger, barer language, he influenced an entire body of American modern poetry in the twentieth century. As a critic and editor, he was responsible for promoting the work of such literary giants as James Joyce, T. S. Eliot and Ernest Hemmingway. After the First World War, his politics reflected his fear that the waging of war would become a full-time business upon which we would come to rely for our economic structure, and he began to look toward (unfortunately) Italy and Germany for a socialist model. Because of his anti-American broadcasts and correspondence, Pound was arrested for treason at the end of World War II and brought back to the United States. Declared mentally unfit for trial, he was committed to an insane asylum for the next twelve years. The campaign waged by fellow poets ended in having the first Bollingen Prize awarded to Pound; he was subsequently released from the hospital and he returned to Italy in 1958, dying there in 1972. The controversy of his personal politics has since interfered with a full appreciation of him as a poet, but if it is of any redeeming value, Ezra Pound himself wrote: “… Let the Gods forgive what I have made/Let those I love try to forgive what I have made…”