Humanverse

Ellanor vs Ellis

American parents have registered 57,731 Ellises since 1880, against 756 Ellanors. Ellis is still ahead, with 1,832 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Ellanor against Ellis, 1880 to 2025 0 500 1k 1.5k 2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Ellanor Ellis

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

Ellis 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 2007, when Ellanor had 22 and Ellis had 373.

Side by side

  Ellanor Ellis
Total US births 75657,731
Most in one year 501,832
Babies in 2025 421,832
Estimated living today 68035,000
Median age today 812
Peak year 20212025
Best rank 3,215th girls243rd boys
Rank in 2025 3,577th243rd
First recorded 19131880
Girls / boys 756 / 07,328 / 50,403

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 Ellises alive today are over 12; half the Ellanors are over 8. That is 4 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 Ellanor Ellis
England and Wales 9821,466

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: Ellanor and Ellis.