Esmeralda
Esmeralda reached its high-water mark in 1998 at number 133, and has been recorded 51,751 times in all. In 2025 it ranked 373rd. About 50,000 Esmeraldas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 23.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Esmeralda boys named Esmeralda
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 51,751
- Estimated living today
- 50,000
- Median age today
- 23
- Peak year
- 1998
- Best rank
- 133rd
- Rank in 2025
- 373rd
- First recorded
- 1911
- Girls / boys
- 51,571 / 180
How old the living Esmeraldas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 51,751 babies given the name since 1911, about 50,000 are alive — 97 in every hundred. Roughly 16,000 of them are children and 1,300 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2002 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.
Where the name comes from
Origin Spanish
From Spanish esmeralda (“emerald”), as first used in the novel Notre-Dame de Paris (1831) by Victor Hugo.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Esmeraldas
- Princess Marie-Esméralda, Lady Moncada (born 1956)Belgian princess, youngest child of Leopold III of Belgium and Lilian, Princess of Réthy
- Esmeralda Pimentel (born 1988)American Mexican actress and model
- Esmeralda Mallada (1937–2023)Uruguayan astronomer and professor
People named Esmeralda with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Esmeralda is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Esmeralda is most concentrated in Nevada (3.8×), California (3.5×), Texas (3.4×), Arizona (3.2×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1998
The most popular girls’ names the year Esmeralda peaked:
Esmeralda elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Italy girls | Esmeralda | 2,111 | — |
| France girls | Esmeralda +1 spelling | 1,665 | 586th |
| England and Wales girls | Esmeralda | 446 | 872nd |
| Switzerland girls | Esmeralda | 177 | 503rd |
| Belgium girls | Esmeralda | 126 | 604th |
| Poland girls | Esmeralda | 29 birth registrations | 329th |
| Scotland girls | Esmeralda | 8 | 636th |
| Ireland girls | Esmeralda | 4 | 700th |
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.
Esmeralda: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Esmeralda | 103 | 0.008% | 503rd |
| French girls | Switzerland | Esmeralda | 48 | 0.011% | 293rd |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Esmeralda | 26 | 0.040% | 90th |
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, Esmeralda is most concentrated in Ticino, where 0.04% of children were given it – 25 of them.
Esmeralda: rank by region
In 2023, Esmeralda was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wallonia | Esmeralda | 431 | 6 |
In 2021, Esmeralda was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Esmeralda | 8 | 1 |
In 2020, Esmeralda was given 2 times or more in 1 region of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dolnośląskie | Esmeralda | 208 | 2 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Esmeralda by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 4 | 555th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Esmeralda 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands girls | Esmeralda | 2,989 | 5,681 |
| Finland girls | Esmeralda | 67 | 315 |
| the Netherlands boys | Esmeralda | — | 18 |
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, 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.
Where Esmeralda lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 9,775 women called Esmeralda were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Badajoz | Esmeralda | 325 | 0.964 | 184 |
| Ávila | Esmeralda | 76 | 0.950 | 188 |
| Teruel | Esmeralda | 60 | 0.899 | 169 |
| Toledo | Esmeralda | 331 | 0.881 | 186 |
| Salamanca | Esmeralda | 136 | 0.803 | 202 |
| Zamora | Esmeralda | 67 | 0.802 | 216 |
Listed in 51 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 1 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Esmeralda 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.