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Eleanore vs Eleni

American parents have registered 18,724 Eleanores since 1880, against 6,822 Elenis. But in 2025 it was Eleni that was commoner, 240 babies to 156.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Eleanore against Eleni, 1880 to 2025 0 200 400 600 800 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Eleanore Eleni

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Of the 146 years in which either name was published, Eleanore for 84 years and Eleni for 62 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Eleanore Eleni
Total US births 18,7246,822
Most in one year 768255
Babies in 2025 156240
Estimated living today 4,1006,700
Median age today 3421
Peak year 19212024
Best rank 235th girls1,004th girls
Rank in 2025 1,396th1,038th
First recorded 18801946
Girls / boys 18,724 / 06,822 / 0

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Eleanores alive today are over 34; half the Elenis are over 21. That is 13 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Eleanore Eleni
France 3,250 Eléanore150
England and Wales 1491,234
Belgium 378 Eléanore366
Switzerland 55 Eléanore568

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Eleanore and Eleni.