Humanverse

Elynor vs Elysia

American parents have registered 4,503 Elysias since 1880, against 502 Elynors. Elysia is still ahead, with 149 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Elynor against Elysia, 1880 to 2025 0 40 80 120 160 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Elynor Elysia

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 96 years in which either name was published, Elysia for 63 years and Elynor for 33 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Elynor Elysia
Total US births 5024,503
Most in one year 25152
Babies in 2025 11149
Estimated living today 1204,400
Median age today 1221
Peak year 19192002
Best rank 1,604th girls1,288th girls
Rank in 2025 8,860th1,443rd
First recorded 19121957
Girls / boys 502 / 04,496 / 7

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 Elysias alive today are over 21; half the Elynors are over 12. That is 9 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 Elynor Elysia
England and Wales 31,449
France 5185

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: Elynor and Elysia.