Humanverse

Elijah vs Elin

American parents have registered 381,915 Elijahs since 1880, against 5,204 Elins. Elijah is still ahead, with 11,126 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Elijah against Elin, 1880 to 2025 0 4k 8k 12k 16k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Elijah Elin

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

Elijah has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1893, when Elijah had 77 and Elin had 9.

Side by side

  Elijah Elin
Total US births 381,9155,204
Most in one year 14,034428
Babies in 2025 11,12653
Estimated living today 366,0004,800
Median age today 1412
Peak year 20112011
Best rank 13th boys662nd girls
Rank in 2025 7th3,067th
First recorded 18801893
Girls / boys 1,304 / 380,6115,052 / 152

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 Elijahs alive today are over 14; half the Elins are over 12. That is 2 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 Elijah Elin
England and Wales 24,0432,222
France 4,455355
Switzerland 6623,914
Belgium 696446
Scotland 81929
Ireland 74134
Northern Ireland 6353
Poland 426

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: Elijah and Elin.