Humanverse

Elian vs Elise

American parents have registered 75,252 Elises since 1880, against 15,380 Elians. But in 2025 it was Elian that was commoner, 2,457 babies to 1,367.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Elian against Elise, 1880 to 2025 0 800 1.6k 2.4k 3.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Elian Elise

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, Elise for 143 years and Elian for 3 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Elian Elise
Total US births 15,38075,252
Most in one year 2,4572,126
Babies in 2025 2,4571,367
Estimated living today 15,00067,000
Median age today 521
Peak year 20252012
Best rank 147th boys152nd girls
Rank in 2025 147th223rd
First recorded 19881880
Girls / boys 112 / 15,26875,186 / 66

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 Elises alive today are over 21; half the Elians are over 5. That is 16 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 Elian Elise
France 4,040126,480
Belgium 38610,696
England and Wales 3689,629
Norway 407,889
Switzerland 5291,252
Poland 5437

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: Elian and Elise.