Eileen

Popularity, 1880–2025

girls named Eileen boys named Eileen

By the numbers

Total US births

190,020

Estimated living today

105,000

Median age today

67

Peak year

1947

Best rank

91st

Rank in 2025

654th

First recorded

1882

Girls / boys

189,614 / 406

How old the living Eileens are

born that year still alive today

Of the 190,020 babies given the name since 1882, about 105,000 are alive — 55 in every hundred. Roughly 7,200 of them are children and 59,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1958 and half after.

An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.

Where the name comes from

Origin Irish

From Anglicized forms of Irish Eibhlín, Eilín or Aibhilín in Middle English and Modern English, all cognates of from Old French Aveline. Sometimes also used for the Irish name Éibhleann, possibly from Old Irish oíph (“radiance, beauty”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Notable Eileens

• Eileen Collins (born 1956)Astronaut and United States Air Force pilot
• Eileen Gu (born 2003)American-born Chinese freestyle skier
• Eileen Chang (1921–1995)Chinese-born American essayist, novelist, and screenwriter
• Eileen Heckart (1919–2001)American actress
• Eileen Brennan (1932–2013)American actress and singer
• Eileen Atkins (born 1934)British actress
• Eileen Gray (1878–1976)Irish architect and designer
• Eileen Davidson (born 1959)American actress

People named Eileen with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Where Eileen is most common

• NY42,841
• PA19,123
• IL13,469
• NJ13,397
• CA13,295
• MA11,704
• OH10,199
• MI5,930
• WI4,631
• MN4,429

Relative to how many babies each state records, Eileen is most concentrated in New York (3.0×), New Jersey (2.6×), Massachusetts (2.6×), Rhode Island (2.4×).

Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.

Names of 1947

The most popular girls’ names the year Eileen peaked:

• Linda
• Mary
• Patricia
• Barbara
• Sandra
• Carol

All the names of 1947

Eileen elsewhere

Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.

Eileen: births by region

Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.

By canton, Eileen is most concentrated in St. Gallen, where 0.03% of children were given it – 38 of them.

Eileen: rank by region

In 2025, Eileen was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.

In 2023, Eileen was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.

In 2019, Eileen was given 2 times or more in 1 region of Poland.

Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.

Eileen by city

One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.

Eileen among the living

How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.

A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.

Where Eileen lives in Spain

Not a count of births but of people: 583 women called Eileen were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.

Women: the provinces where it is densest

Listed in 24 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 28 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.

Related names

• Eilene
• Eila
• Eiley
• Eileene
• Eilleen

Eileen against another name

Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.

• Eileen vs Eilene
• Eileen vs Eila
• Eileen vs Eiley
• Eileen vs Eileene
• Eileen vs Eilleen

Compare Eileen with a name of your own