Emily

Spellings & scripts●

Locally spelled Emilie in FR France, DK Denmark, NO Norway and 3 more, Emilia in FI Finland, ES Spain and אמילי in IL Israel.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin●

Attested across 25 languages in the etymology graph.

Languages●

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Emily is also recorded as 8 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

• Portuguese given name1.8M records spelled Emily16 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Brazil, United States, Argentina, Ecuador

  Languages: Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian

  Also written Émily, Emîly, Emïly, Ëmïly, E'Mily

• a separate given name124K records spelled Emily3 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Italy

  Also written Êmily, Émily

• French given name73K records spelled Emily3 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in France, United States, United Kingdom, Canada

  Also written Émily, Emi-Ly

• Polish given name47K records spelled Emily43 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Poland, United States, Czechia, Croatia

  Languages: Polish, Czech, Croatian

  Also written Emili, Емили, Emilie, Émilie, Êmily

• Indonesian given name19K records spelled Emily4 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in United States, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines

  Languages: Indonesian, Malay

  Also written Émily, Èmily

• Finnish given name12K records spelled Emily5 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Finland, United States, Hungary, United Kingdom

  Languages: Finnish, Hungarian, Estonian

  Also written Ëmilÿ, Ëmïlÿ

• Italian given name11K records spelled Emily3 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Italy

  Also written Ëmîly, Émily

• Thai given name8.3K records spelled Emily36 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in United States, Laos, Thailand, United Kingdom

  Languages: Thai, Lao

  Also written เอ็มมูล, Emmelie, เอ็มมิลี่, เอมมิลี่, Emmon

76 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Emily is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

• From a medieval form of the Latin name Aemilia, the feminine version of the old Roman family name Aemilius (probably from aemulus ‘rival’). It was not common in the Middle Ages, but was revived in the roth century and is very popular today. Its best-known 19th century bearer was probably the novelist and poet Emily Bronté (1818-48). EMILY.

  as a name·A concise dictionary of first names

• In Swedish, Emily och Emilie är former bildade till Æmilia (se → Emil) liksom till → Emelie. Namnen blandas ofta samman. Emily är en engelsk form, populär sedan 1800-talet, medan Emilie är en fransk. En känd svensk namnbärare är författaren Emilie FlygareCarlén (1807–92). I den finlandssvenska almanackan 19 maj.

  as a name·Förnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon

• In German, Emily Dickinson, ameri­ kanische Lyrikerin

  as a name·DUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen

• English: from a medieval form of the Latin name Aemilia , the feminine version of the old Roman family name Aemilius (probably from aemulus rival). It was not common in the Middle Ages, and when it was revived in the 19th century there was much confusion between the originally distinct AMELIA and the Latinate form of this name, Emilia . Cognates: French: Émilie. German: Emilie .

  as a word

• In Swedish, a female given name from from English [in turn from French Amélie, in turn from Latin Aemilia], variant of Emelie

  as a word·kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Over time●

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 146 years between 1880–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

• Emily Brontëb. 1818GBEnglish novelist and poet (1818–1848)
• Emily Dickinsonb. 1830USAmerican poet (1830-1886)
• Emily Greene Balchb. 1867USAmerican economist and writer
• Peggy Ashcroftb. 1907GBnot in their usual nameBritish actress (1907-1991)
• Emily Watsonb. 1967GBEnglish actress (born 1967)
• Emily Mortimerb. 1971GBBritish actress
• Emily Roseb. 1981USAmerican actress
• Emily Bluntb. 1983GBBritish actress (born 1983)
• Emily VanCampb. 1986CACanadian actress
• Emma Stoneb. 1988USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress and producer

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence●

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 1,683 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Emily?

We estimate roughly 1.5 million people bear Emily (counting its spellings and scripts) across 14 countries in our records.

In which country does Emily have the most bearers?

We estimate about 755 thousand people bear Emily in the United States, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled emily.

Where is Emily most common?

Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Emily is densest in Finland — about 1 in 77 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.

How common is Emily compared with other names?

In the United States, Emily is the 150th most common given name of 3,122,706 given names recorded there.

Is Emily a male or female name?

Emily is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.

What does the name Emily mean?

Recorded meaning: Feminine form of Roman clan name Aemilius; later influenced by Amelia.