Humanverse

Elias vs Elishia

American parents have registered 129,502 Eliases since 1880, against 587 Elishias. Elias is still ahead, with 8,845 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Elias Elishia

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

Elias 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 1981, when Elias had 396 and Elishia had 34.

Side by side

  Elias Elishia
Total US births 129,502587
Most in one year 8,84534
Babies in 2025 8,845under 5
Estimated living today 121,000560
Median age today 941
Peak year 20251981
Best rank 13th boys2,657th girls
Rank in 2025 13thunranked
First recorded 18801959
Girls / boys 239 / 129,263587 / 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 Elishias alive today are over 41; half the Eliases are over 9. That is 32 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 Elias Elishia
England and Wales 7,787120

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: Elias and Elishia.