Evelyn
About 641,662 American babies have been named Evelyn since 1880, most of them around 1921. In 2025 it ranked 8th. About 315,000 Evelyns are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 18.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Evelyn boys named Evelyn
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 641,662
- Estimated living today
- 315,000
- Median age today
- 18
- Peak year
- 1921
- Best rank
- 12th
- Rank in 2025
- 8th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 639,756 / 1,906
How old the living Evelyns are
born that year still alive today
Of the 641,662 babies given the name since 1880, about 315,000 are alive — 49 in every hundred. Roughly 153,000 of them are children and 80,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2007 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 Germanic languages
From Middle English forms of the Old French female name Aveline, diminutive of the Germanic root *avi-, of uncertain meaning, possibly “desired, wished for“ (compare Latin aveo, "to wish for") or aval “strength”. By also misunderstood as a diminutive of the feminine given name Eve, q.v. Also compare Ava.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Evelyns
- Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966)British writer and journalist
- Evelyn Beatrice Hall (1868–1956)English writer
- Evelyn Ashford (born 1957)American sprinter
- Evelyn Glennie (born 1965)Scottish percussionist and composer
- Evelyn De Morgan (1855–1919)Pre-Raphaelite artist (1993-
- Evelyn Keyes (1916–2008)American film actress
- Evelyn Sharma (born 1989)Indo-German actress
- Evelyn Fox Keller (1936–2023)American physicist, author and feminist
People named Evelyn with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Evelyn is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Evelyn is most concentrated in North Dakota (1.6×), South Dakota (1.5×), Nebraska (1.4×), Vermont (1.3×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1921
The most popular girls’ names the year Evelyn peaked:
Evelyn elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales girls | Evelyn | 28,471 | 22nd |
| Italy girls | Evelyn | 4,077 | — |
| Ireland girls | Evelyn | 2,914 | 85th |
| Norway girls | Evelyn | 1,850 | 101st |
| New Zealand girls | Evelyn | 1,358 | 22nd |
| Scotland girls | Evelyn | 1,062 | 75th |
| France girls | Evelyn | 435 | 1,287th |
| Belgium girls | Evelyn | 363 | 314th |
| Switzerland girls | Evelyn | 315 | 257th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Evelyn | 268 | 75th |
| Poland girls | Evelyn | 26 birth registrations | 460th |
| France boys | Evelyn | 5 | 1,180th |
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.
Evelyn: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Evelyn | 223 | 0.018% | 275th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Evelyn | 48 | 0.011% | 250th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Evelyn | 44 | 0.068% | 66th |
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, Evelyn is most concentrated in Ticino, where 0.07% of children were given it – 42 of them.
Evelyn: rank by region
In 2025, Evelyn was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Evelyn | 584 | 8 |
In 2024, Evelyn was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Evelyn | 7 | 2 |
In 2024, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Evelyn appears in the lists for Province of Antwerp (308th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names – 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.
Evelyn by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 70 | 170th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Evelyn 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands girls | Evelyn | 1,732 | 2,713 |
| Finland girls | Evelyn | 236 | 651 |
| the Netherlands boys | Evelyn | — | 17 |
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, 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 Evelyn lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 4,563 women called Evelyn 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palmas, Las | Evelyn | 367 | 0.622 | 219 |
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Evelyn | 285 | 0.514 | 246 |
| Tarragona | Evelyn | 153 | 0.350 | 344 |
| Málaga | Evelyn | 223 | 0.243 | 380 |
| Alicante/Alacant | Evelyn | 241 | 0.234 | 436 |
| Almería | Evelyn | 85 | 0.225 | 449 |
Listed in 51 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 1 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
Evelyn 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.