Humanverse

Emeli vs Emely

American parents have registered 23,880 Emelys since 1880, against 1,417 Emelis. Emely is still ahead, with 590 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Emeli against Emely, 1880 to 2025 0 300 600 900 1.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Emeli Emely

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

Emely has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1912 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1986, when Emeli had 6 and Emely had 48.

Side by side

  Emeli Emely
Total US births 1,41723,880
Most in one year 911,092
Babies in 2025 32590
Estimated living today 1,40024,000
Median age today 1716
Peak year 20052008
Best rank 2,057th girls306th girls
Rank in 2025 4,352nd503rd
First recorded 19861912
Girls / boys 1,417 / 023,864 / 16

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.

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 Emeli Emely
Belgium 6363
England and Wales 16756
Poland 43

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: Emeli and Emely.