Humanverse

Elysia vs Elyssa

American parents have registered 7,272 Elyssas since 1880, against 4,503 Elysias. But in 2025 it was Elysia that was commoner, 149 babies to 26.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Elysia 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 69 years in which either name was published, Elyssa for 49 years and Elysia for 20 years. The lead changed hands 13 times.

9 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.

Side by side

  Elysia Elyssa
Total US births 4,5037,272
Most in one year 152273
Babies in 2025 14926
Estimated living today 4,4007,100
Median age today 2124
Peak year 20022004
Best rank 1,288th girls890th girls
Rank in 2025 1,443rd4,987th
First recorded 19571954
Girls / boys 4,496 / 77,272 / 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 Elysias are over 21. That is 3 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 Elysia Elyssa
France 1851,715
England and Wales 1,449423
Belgium 41113
Scotland 2417
Ireland 93

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: Elysia and Elyssa.