Elija
The boy's name Elija has been in the national records since 1889, with 1,169 births to its name. In 2025 it ranked 6,143rd. About 1,100 Elijas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 17.
Popularity, 1880–2025
boys named Elija
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 1,169
- Estimated living today
- 1,100
- Median age today
- 17
- Peak year
- 2008
- Best rank
- 2,327th
- Rank in 2025
- 6,143rd
- First recorded
- 1889
How old the living Elijas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 1,169 babies given the name since 1889, about 1,100 are alive — 91 in every hundred. Roughly 550 of them are children and 1 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2008 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Notable Elijas
- Elija Godwin (born 1999)American athlete
People named Elija with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Elija is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Elija is most concentrated in California (6.0×), Texas (3.9×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2008
The most popular boys’ names the year Elija peaked:
Elija elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Switzerland boys | Elija | 372 | 337th |
| England and Wales girls | Elija | 207 | 1,172nd |
| Ireland girls | Elija | 43 | 581st |
| France boys | Elija | 25 | 6,208th |
| England and Wales boys | Elija | 19 | 3,990th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Elija | 10 | 363rd |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Elija: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | Elija | 366 | 0.029% | 247th |
| French boys | Switzerland | Elija | 5 | 0.001% | 727th |
| Italian boys | Switzerland | Elija | 1 | 0.002% | 182nd |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Elija is most concentrated in Thurgau, where 0.05% of children were given it – 27 of them.
Elija by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 8 | 421st |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Elija among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland boys | Elija | 8 | 19 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Related names
Elija against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.