Humanverse

Ella vs Ellanor

American parents have registered 352,214 Ellas since 1880, against 756 Ellanors. Ella is still ahead, with 5,831 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Ella Ellanor

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

Ella 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 2023, when Ella had 5,675 and Ellanor had 41.

Side by side

  Ella Ellanor
Total US births 352,214756
Most in one year 9,89850
Babies in 2025 5,83142
Estimated living today 226,000680
Median age today 148
Peak year 20102021
Best rank 13th girls3,215th girls
Rank in 2025 29th3,577th
First recorded 18801913
Girls / boys 351,313 / 901756 / 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 Ellas alive today are over 14; half the Ellanors are over 8. That is 6 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 Ella Ellanor
England and Wales 69,98498

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: Ella and Ellanor.