Humanverse

Ellen vs Ellianna

American parents have registered 276,029 Ellens since 1880, against 6,212 Elliannas. But in 2025 it was Ellianna that was commoner, 450 babies to 230.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Ellen against Ellianna, 1880 to 2025 0 1.5k 3k 4.5k 6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Ellen Ellianna

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, Ellen for 139 years and Ellianna for 7 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Ellen Ellianna
Total US births 276,0296,212
Most in one year 5,956483
Babies in 2025 230450
Estimated living today 151,0006,200
Median age today 667
Peak year 19512023
Best rank 68th girls618th girls
Rank in 2025 1,062nd642nd
First recorded 18801994
Girls / boys 275,284 / 7456,212 / 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 Ellens alive today are over 66; half the Elliannas are over 7. That is 59 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 Ellen Ellianna
England and Wales 8,819119
Ireland 8,3913
Scotland 1,2704

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: Ellen and Ellianna.