Ezra
Meaning of Ezra
Ezra is a Hebrew name meaning help or aid. Name dictionaries trace it to a Hebrew word for help and explain it as a shortened form of Azariah, meaning the Lord helps. In the Hebrew Bible, Ezra is a priest and scribe who leads a group of returning exiles from Babylon to Jerusalem and reads the Law aloud to the assembled people; the Book of Ezra bears his name. Uzayr, named once in the Quran, is generally identified with him.
English speakers say EZ-ruh, with the stress on the first syllable; American and British pronunciation is the same.
The best-known bearers today are probably Ezra Koenig, lead singer and songwriter of Vampire Weekend, and the actor Ezra Miller, who appeared in The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
In 2025 Ezra was given to 8,126 boys in the United States and ranked 20th, just below its highest position of 13th in 2024, when 8,822 were named. The climb has been steep: the name stood at 142nd in 2013 with 2,757 births, and in 1996 it was still outside the top 500. Earlier in the twentieth century it was much rarer, sinking to 1,147th in 1964.
Pronunciation
English
- Pronunced as EZ-ruh (/ˈɛzrə/)
U.S. Popularity Chart
States Popularity Chart
Notable People Named Ezra
| Ezra Matthew Miller is an American actor who debuted with Afterschool in 2008 and starred in We Need to Talk About Kevin in 2011 and The Perks of Being a Wallflower in 2012. |
| Ezra Taft Benson was an American farmer and public official who served as US Secretary of Agriculture under President Eisenhower and later as president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1985 to 1994. |
| Ezra Michael Koenig is an American musician and producer, best known as the lead singer and songwriter for Vampire Weekend, the creator of the Netflix series Neo Yokio, and host of the Apple Music show Time Crisis, now in its tenth season. |
| Ezra Feivel Vogel was an American sociologist and Harvard professor known for his work on modern Japan, China, and Korea. |
| Ezra Attiya was a leading 20th century Sephardic Torah teacher who headed Porat Yosef Yeshiva in Jerusalem for 45 years and taught thousands whose influence shapes Sephardic Torah leadership today. |
| Ezra Slocum Carr was a physician turned professor who taught science at Wisconsin and the University of California Berkeley, served as California Superintendent of Public Instruction, and with his wife Jeanne profoundly influenced their friend John Muir. |
| Ezra Lee is an Australian singer songwriter and pianist. |
| Ezra Benjamin Edelman is an American documentary filmmaker who won an Oscar and an Emmy for OJ Made in America and also directed the still unreleased documentary The Book of Prince. |
| Ezra Frech is an American Paralympic track and field athlete and disability rights advocate, a two time Paralympian who won two gold medals in 2024 and two Parapan American silver medals in 2019. |
| Ezra Ripley was an American minister at the First Parish Church in Concord. |
| Ezra Levin is an American political activist who cofounded and now coleads the progressive group Indivisible, coauthored We Are Indivisible, and was named to the Time 100. |
| Ezra Wheeler was an American politician, lawyer, and judge who served one term in the US House for the 5th district of Wisconsin from 1863 to 1865 as a Democrat. |
| Ezra Midkiff was a Major League Baseball third baseman for the Cincinnati Reds in 1909 and the New York Highlanders in 1912 and 1913. |
| Ezra Schwartz is a Rosh yeshiva and the fifth bochein at RIETS of Yeshiva University in New York, overseeing entrance exams and class placement and succeeding Rabbis Yehuda Weil, Mendel Zaks, Shraga Feivel Paretzky, and Eli B. Shulman. |
| Ezra Khedouri Zilkha was a prominent American financier and philanthropist. |
