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Ellen vs Elliot

American parents have registered 276,029 Ellens since 1880, against 65,600 Elliots. But in 2025 it was Elliot that was commoner, 2,658 babies to 230.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Ellen Elliot

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 123 years and Elliot for 23 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Ellen Elliot
Total US births 276,02965,600
Most in one year 5,9562,932
Babies in 2025 2302,658
Estimated living today 151,00061,000
Median age today 6611
Peak year 19512022
Best rank 68th girls150th boys
Rank in 2025 1,062nd151st
First recorded 18801880
Girls / boys 275,284 / 7457,008 / 58,592

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 Elliots are over 11. That is 55 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 Elliot
England and Wales 8,81924,177
Sweden 11,72910,369
Norway 11,7591,056
France 1,1959,315
Ireland 8,391848
Denmark 3,6653,824
Belgium 2,6301,214
Scotland 1,2701,851
Northern Ireland 1,405221
Switzerland 394455
New Zealand 124103
Poland 5650

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 Elliot.