Humanverse

Emelia vs Emelie

American parents have registered 14,028 Emelias since 1880, against 2,612 Emelies. Emelia is still ahead, with 488 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Emelia Emelie

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, Emelia for 142 years and Emelie for 4 years. The lead changed hands 6 times.

Side by side

  Emelia Emelie
Total US births 14,0282,612
Most in one year 70176
Babies in 2025 48825
Estimated living today 12,0002,000
Median age today 1020
Peak year 20192003
Best rank 443rd girls2,243rd girls
Rank in 2025 601st5,099th
First recorded 18801880
Girls / boys 14,028 / 02,612 / 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 Emelies alive today are over 20; half the Emelias are over 10. That is 10 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 Emelia Emelie
England and Wales 4,112303
France 3302,975
Belgium 5441
Scotland 17829
Ireland 13815
Northern Ireland 636

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: Emelia and Emelie.