Humanverse

Emaline vs Emanuel

American parents have registered 54,855 Emanuels since 1880, against 1,901 Emalines. Emanuel is still ahead, with 513 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Emaline against Emanuel, 1880 to 2025 0 400 800 1.2k 1.6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Emaline Emanuel

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

Emanuel 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 1888, when Emaline had 9 and Emanuel had 30.

Side by side

  Emaline Emanuel
Total US births 1,90154,855
Most in one year 731,386
Babies in 2025 28513
Estimated living today 1,20043,000
Median age today 1222
Peak year 20162007
Best rank 2,479th girls256th boys
Rank in 2025 4,758th574th
First recorded 18851880
Girls / boys 1,901 / 099 / 54,756

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 Emanuels alive today are over 22; half the Emalines are over 12. That is 10 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.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Emaline and Emanuel.