Humanverse

Elizabeth vs Elyzabeth

American parents have registered 1,693,973 Elizabeths since 1880, against 566 Elyzabeths. Elizabeth is still ahead, with 6,765 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Elizabeth against Elyzabeth, 1880 to 2025 0 6k 12k 18k 24k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Elizabeth Elyzabeth

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

Elizabeth 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 2019, when Elizabeth had 7,934 and Elyzabeth had 24.

Side by side

  Elizabeth Elyzabeth
Total US births 1,693,973566
Most in one year 20,84130
Babies in 2025 6,7658
Estimated living today 1.1 million560
Median age today 4217
Peak year 19902011
Best rank 9th girls4,681st girls
Rank in 2025 17th10,917th
First recorded 18801978
Girls / boys 1,688,757 / 5,216566 / 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 Elizabeths alive today are over 42; half the Elyzabeths are over 17. That is 25 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 Elizabeth Elyzabeth
France 4,9355

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: Elizabeth and Elyzabeth.