Name histories / Elijah
Elijah: U.S. name history
Published Social Security birth-name counts for the exact spelling Elijah in the male recorded field, 1880–2025.
In the latest file, Elijah was at position 7 among published male-field spellings, with 11,111 recorded births. That is down 127 from 11,238 in 2024. Its first released row in this archive is from 1880; a missing earlier row does not establish when the name began to exist.
What the historical pattern shows
Elijah has a published male-field row from 1880, yet remained outside the top 200 in 1990. It reached position 52 in 2000 and position 18 in 2010 as the spelling became much more common in the SSA record.
Its highest annual count was in 2011. In 2025 it was seventh. The ranking remains strong even though the peak count came more than a decade earlier.
Selected annual records
| Birth year | Published count | Position* |
|---|---|---|
| 1880 | 100 | 135 |
| 1900 | 86 | 211 |
| 1925 | 283 | 348 |
| 1950 | 282 | 403 |
| 1975 | 263 | 491 |
| 1990 | 1,139 | 243 |
| 2000 | 7,472 | 52 |
| 2010 | 13,920 | 18 |
| 2011 | 14,001 | 13 |
| 2015 | 13,710 | 11 |
| 2020 | 13,238 | 4 |
| 2024 | 11,238 | 8 |
| 2025 | 11,111 | 7 |
*Position is calculated from the published entries in one year and field, ordered by count; it is not an official SSA rank. Counts are not adjusted for population or coverage. SSA suppresses small cells, so no row does not mean zero births.
Keep exploring
Compare Noah · Mateo; inspect any spelling in the annual popularity tool; or see the 2025 overview.
Sources: SSA national data and suppression rules · our data method. Data reviewed 1 November 2026.