Emma
A Germanic feminine name meaning "universal" or "whole".
Our analysis of Social Security Administration records puts the number of living Americans named Emma at approximately 548,640. That places it at #2 in the national ranking of first names. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Emma today is around 20 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Emma births was 2003 (22,756 babies). In terms of living bearers, it sits close to Larry (547,387).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Emma. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Emma with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Emma is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 1,718 boys registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
549K
~ 1 in 625 Americans
Peak year
2003
22,756 babies that year
Average age
20
years old
2024 SSA rank
#2
Tracked since 1880
Census
Emma in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 498,216 people with the first name Emma, which placed it at #86 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#86
National first-name rank
People counted
498K
498,216 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
165.0
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
71.7% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Emma
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Emma is White at 71.7%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (16.2%) and Black (4.3%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Emma described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Emma at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White71.7% · 357,378
- Hispanic or Latino16.2% · 80,699
- Black or African American4.3% · 21,349
- Two or more races4.1% · 20,408
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.2% · 15,895
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.5% · 2,487
Gender
Gender distribution for Emma
Out of the 765,264 babies given the name Emma since 1880, 99.8% were registered as female. The name sits firmly on the female side of the spectrum, with only a handful of male registrations across the entire dataset.
Emma as a male name
- Ranked #5,710 in 2024
- 16 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2004 (102 births)
Emma as a female name
- Ranked #2 in 2024
- 13,485 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2003 (22,719 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Emma appears almost entirely female. Of the 498,221 people counted with this name, 99.8% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Emma: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Emma from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 195,190 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Emma remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Emma by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Emma during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
| Decade | Male | Female | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1880s | 108 | 25,404 | 25,512 |
| 1890s | 111 | 28,652 | 28,763 |
| 1900s | 92 | 24,176 | 24,268 |
| 1910s | 144 | 41,819 | 41,963 |
| 1920s | 192 | 46,538 | 46,730 |
| 1930s | 208 | 30,022 | 30,230 |
| 1940s | 113 | 22,787 | 22,900 |
| 1950s | 44 | 14,614 | 14,658 |
| 1960s | 18 | 6,991 | 7,009 |
| 1970s | 16 | 4,667 | 4,683 |
| 1980s | 62 | 10,386 | 10,448 |
| 1990s | 70 | 58,250 | 58,320 |
| 2000s | 297 | 181,393 | 181,690 |
| 2010s | 162 | 195,028 | 195,190 |
| 2020s | 81 | 72,819 | 72,900 |
Geography
Where Emmas live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, Texas, New York recorded the most babies named Emma, while Wyoming, Alaska, Vermont recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 13,400 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Emma
The name Emma has its origins in the Germanic language and is derived from the word "ermen," meaning "whole" or "universal." It is believed to have originated as a shortened form of the longer Germanic names like Ermentrude or Irmengard.
Emma first appeared in Europe during the Middle Ages, particularly in Germany and England. One of the earliest recorded instances of the name can be found in the Domesday Book, a survey of land ownership commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1086, where it was spelled "Eme" or "Emme."
In the 12th century, Emma became a popular name among the English nobility, likely influenced by the Norman French culture that had been introduced to England after the Norman Conquest. One notable bearer of the name was Emma of Normandy, who was born around 985 and married two English kings, Ethelred the Unready and Cnut the Great.
The name gained further prominence in the 13th century when Emma of Lesum, a German mystic and Benedictine nun, lived from around 1200 to 1284. Her spiritual writings and reputation for piety contributed to the name's popularity in Germanic regions.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Emma. Emma Lazarus (1849-1887) was an American poet and author best known for her sonnet "The New Colossus," which is inscribed on the Statue of Liberty. Emma Bovary is the protagonist of Gustave Flaubert's acclaimed 1856 novel "Madame Bovary," which explored the life of a provincial housewife in 19th-century France.
In the realm of science, Emma Noether (1882-1935) was a pioneering German mathematician who made groundbreaking contributions to abstract algebra and theoretical physics. Emma Goldman (1869-1940) was a Russian-born political activist, writer, and influential figure in the anarchist movement in the United States.
Another notable Emma was Emma Woodhouse, the central character in Jane Austen's novel "Emma," published in 1815. The book's exploration of Emma's misguided attempts at matchmaking and her eventual growth and self-awareness made her a beloved and enduring literary figure.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Emma
People
Emma + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Emma as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with E
Other first names starting with E with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Emma: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Emma?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 548,640 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Emma going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 625 US residents.
Is Emma a common name?
We classify Emma as "Very Common". It ranks above 99.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 765,264 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Emma most popular?
The single biggest year for Emma was 2003, when 22,756 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Emma is about 20 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Emma in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 498,216 people with the name Emma, or 164.96 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #86 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Emma in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Emma?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Emma appears almost entirely female. Of the 498,221 people counted with this name, 99.8% were female and only a very small share were male. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Emma?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Emma is White at 71.7%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (16.2%) and Black (4.3%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Emma most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Emma in the 2020 Census, accounting for 71.7% (357,378 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Emma in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Emma a female name?
Yes, 99.8% of people registered as Emma in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Emma still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Emma in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Emma can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How common is the name Emma?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.