Humanverse

Ellis vs Ellise

American parents have registered 57,731 Ellises since 1880, against 776 Ellises. Ellis is still ahead, with 1,832 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Ellis Ellise

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 2004, when Ellis had 259 and Ellise had 37.

Side by side

  Ellis Ellise
Total US births 57,731776
Most in one year 1,83237
Babies in 2025 1,83210
Estimated living today 35,000750
Median age today 1219
Peak year 20252004
Best rank 243rd boys3,819th girls
Rank in 2025 243rd9,457th
First recorded 18801918
Girls / boys 7,328 / 50,403776 / 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 Ellises alive today are over 19; half the Ellises are over 12. That is 7 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 Ellis Ellise
England and Wales 21,466634
Scotland 2,08134

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: Ellis and Ellise.