Humanverse

Elan vs Elaya

American parents have registered 4,331 Elans since 1880, against 517 Elayas. But in 2025 it was Elaya that was commoner, 89 babies to 59.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Elan against Elaya, 1880 to 2025 0 40 80 120 160 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Elan Elaya

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 62 years in which either name was published, Elan for 61 years and Elaya for 1 year. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Elan Elaya
Total US births 4,331517
Most in one year 15389
Babies in 2025 5989
Estimated living today 4,200510
Median age today 184
Peak year 20112025
Best rank 1,264th boys2,099th girls
Rank in 2025 2,480th2,099th
First recorded 19632004
Girls / boys 798 / 3,533517 / 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 Elans alive today are over 18; half the Elayas are over 4. That is 14 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 Elan Elaya
England and Wales 477215
France 100410
Switzerland 2193

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: Elan and Elaya.