Elaine
About 263,543 American babies have been named Elaine since 1880, most of them around 1947. In 2025 it ranked 304th. About 149,000 Elaines are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 69.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Elaine boys named Elaine
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 263,543
- Estimated living today
- 149,000
- Median age today
- 69
- Peak year
- 1947
- Best rank
- 50th
- Rank in 2025
- 304th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 262,890 / 653
How old the living Elaines are
born that year still alive today
Of the 263,543 babies given the name since 1880, about 149,000 are alive — 56 in every hundred. Roughly 9,700 of them are children and 94,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1956 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 Ancient Greek
From Old French Elaine, a variant of Elene, cognate to Helen, ultimately from Ancient Greek Ἑλένη. A cel origin has also been suggested since the name appears in Arthurian legend.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Elaines
- Elaine Thompson-Herah (born 1992)Jamaican athletics competitor
- Elaine Chao (born 1953)18th United States Secretary of Transportation and 24th United States Secretary of Labor
- Elaine Paige (born 1948)English singer, stage actress and radio presenter
- Elaine May (born 1932)American screenwriter, film director, actress, and comedian
- Elaine Hendrix (born 1970)American actress
- Elaine Stritch (1925–2014)American actress and singer in film, television, and the theatre
- Elaine Cassidy (born 1979)Irish actress
- Elaine Pagels (born 1943)American writer
People named Elaine with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Elaine is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Elaine is most concentrated in Rhode Island (2.5×), North Dakota (2.3×), Massachusetts (2.3×), Maine (2.1×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1947
The most popular girls’ names the year Elaine peaked:
Elaine elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ireland girls | Elaine | 10,652 | 6th |
| Scotland girls | Elaine | 4,073 | 18th |
| England and Wales girls | Elaine | 561 | 1,081st |
| New Zealand girls | Elaine | 381 | 68th |
| France girls | Elaine +1 spelling | 370 | 1,057th |
| Switzerland girls | Elaine | 70 | 793rd |
| Belgium girls | Elaine | 38 | 828th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Elaine | 16 | 213th |
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.
Elaine: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Elaine | 62 | 0.005% | 614th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Elaine | 6 | 0.001% | 584th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Elaine | 2 | 0.003% | 191st |
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.
Elaine: rank by region
In 2022, Elaine was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Elaine | 843 | 5 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 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.
Elaine by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 22 | 257th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Elaine 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.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Elaine | 22 | 88 |
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 Elaine lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 804 women called Elaine 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
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alicante/Alacant | Elaine | 98 | 0.095 | 833 |
| Palmas, Las | Elaine | 56 | 0.095 | 1,038 |
| Málaga | Elaine | 81 | 0.088 | 792 |
| Almería | Elaine | 28 | 0.074 | 988 |
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Elaine | 34 | 0.061 | 1,316 |
| Balears, Illes | Elaine | 37 | 0.059 | 1,153 |
Listed in 30 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 22 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
Elaine against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.