Elson vs Elspeth

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Elson Elspeth

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 113 years in which either name was published, Elson for 81 years and Elspeth for 32 years. The lead changed hands 20 times.

• 1911–1976 Elson ahead, apart from one short spell
• 1981–1992 Elspeth ahead
• 1996–2013 Elson ahead, apart from one short spell
• 2014–2022 Elspeth ahead

15 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.

Side by side

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 Elsons alive today are over 31; half the Elspeths are over 28. That is 3 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

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

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

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