Humanverse

Elynor vs Elyssa

American parents have registered 7,272 Elyssas since 1880, against 502 Elynors. Elyssa is still ahead, with 26 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Elynor against Elyssa, 1880 to 2025 0 80 160 240 320 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Elynor Elyssa

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 101 years in which either name was published, Elyssa for 68 years and Elynor for 33 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Elynor Elyssa
Total US births 5027,272
Most in one year 25273
Babies in 2025 1126
Estimated living today 1207,100
Median age today 1224
Peak year 19192004
Best rank 1,604th girls890th girls
Rank in 2025 8,860th4,987th
First recorded 19121954
Girls / boys 502 / 07,272 / 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 Elyssas alive today are over 24; half the Elynors are over 12. That is 12 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 Elyssa
France 51,715
England and Wales 3423

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 Elyssa.