Humanverse

Eli vs Eliana

American parents have registered 154,512 Elis since 1880, against 76,146 Elianas. But in 2025 it was Eliana that was commoner, 8,196 babies to 3,453.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Eli against Eliana, 1880 to 2025 0 2.5k 5k 7.5k 10k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Eli Eliana

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 146 years in which either name was published, Eli for 142 years and Eliana for 4 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Eli Eliana
Total US births 154,51276,146
Most in one year 8,1108,196
Babies in 2025 3,4538,196
Estimated living today 143,00076,000
Median age today 127
Peak year 20122025
Best rank 43rd boys10th girls
Rank in 2025 104th10th
First recorded 18801961
Girls / boys 1,017 / 153,49576,104 / 42

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 Elis alive today are over 12; half the Elianas are over 7. That is 5 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 Eli Eliana
England and Wales 8,6404,592
Norway 7,256372
France 2,7303,935
Belgium 942916
New Zealand 1,52391
Switzerland 475987
Ireland 897182
Scotland 509193
Northern Ireland 53774
Poland 42242

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: Eli and Eliana.