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Amelia vs Amelya

American parents have registered 281,414 Amelias since 1880, against 760 Amelyas. Amelia is still ahead, with 12,705 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Amelia against Amelya, 1880 to 2025 0 4k 8k 12k 16k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Amelia Amelya

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

Amelia has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2006, when Amelia had 4,070 and Amelya had 39.

Side by side

  Amelia Amelya
Total US births 281,414760
Most in one year 13,04944
Babies in 2025 12,70520
Estimated living today 243,000750
Median age today 912
Peak year 20212011
Best rank 4th girls3,550th girls
Rank in 2025 4th5,917th
First recorded 18801995
Girls / boys 281,130 / 284760 / 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 Amelyas alive today are over 12; half the Amelias are over 9. 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.

Country Amelia Amelya
England and Wales 96,96755
France 17,350 Amélia1,680 Amélya
Belgium 3,057197 Amélya
Switzerland 2,77118 Amélya

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: Amelia and Amelya.