Head to head · Girls' names
Amaia vs Emerie
#554 vs #553 in 2025 · both holding its place on the charts
Emerie is a whisker ahead (#553 vs #554 in 2025) and both are holding its place on the charts. The records will not split these two — sound, story and your own last name will.
Cast your vote
Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
The tale of the tape
On the charts, Emerie leads 5 measures of 6; Amaia leads 1.
Ranks, counts and years are measured in the official US birth record; the classroom and living figures are estimates computed from it. The dot marks the side each measure favours on the charts — more common, not better.
What the records say
146 years of US births, drawn on one scale
Two curves, one scale
Who owned which decade
- 1990s: Amaia #8488, Emerie #10974 — Amaia higher
- 2000s: Amaia #2576, Emerie #3777 — Amaia higher
- 2010s: Amaia #1576, Emerie #954 — Emerie higher
- 2020s: Amaia #603, Emerie #574 — Emerie higher
The decades split evenly, 2 each; Emerie has held the lead since the 2010s.
Rank by decade
| Decade | Amaia | Emerie |
|---|---|---|
| 1990s | #8488 | #10974 |
| 2000s | #2576 | #3777 |
| 2010s | #1576 | #954 |
| 2020s | #603 | #574 |
Average national rank across each decade. A dash means the name sat outside the recorded top of that decade.
The names themselves
Meaning, roots, sound and the people who carried each
Where each name comes from
Amaia
In Basque, "the end"; also read as the Castilian place name Amaya
Two serious readings compete. The Basque word amaia means "end" or "conclusion", and that is the reading most Basque name lists give. The other traces the name to Peña Amaya in the province of Burgos, an ancient hilltop stronghold whose name is older than Spanish and not itself translated. Neither reading has pushed the other out.
Amaya (Peña Amaya, Castile) → Amaya (heroine of Navarro Villoslada's 1879 novel) → Amaia (Basque spelling)
How it traveled
The name owes its modern life to a book: Francisco Navarro Villoslada's historical novel "Amaya, o los vascos en el siglo VIII", published in 1879, whose heroine gave Spanish and Basque families a name they had not been using. Through the twentieth century it spread across the Basque Country and the rest of Spain, where the Castilian spelling Amaya and the Basque spelling Amaia have run side by side ever since.
Emerie
from Germanic elements meaning 'power, ruler' joined to amal
The second element, ric, is agreed on: 'power' or 'ruler'. The first, amal, is read two ways — as an ordinary word for 'work' or 'labor', giving 'work-ruler', and as the name of the Amal, the ruling Gothic line, giving something closer to 'ruler of the Amals'. Both readings have serious support, and neither has pushed the other out.
Amalric → Emmerich → Aimery → Emery → Emerie
How it traveled
The root is the Germanic name Emmerich, which traveled west and turned up in Normandy as Aimery before crossing to England with the Normans, where it settled into Emery and then hardened into an English surname. The same name went east as well: Hungarian took it as Imre, honored in the eleventh-century royal saint Emeric, and Italian shaped it into Amerigo — the form that gave the Americas their name.
Where a reading is contested the note says so — this page does not turn a guess into a fact. The chain is each name's recorded forms, oldest first; the story is its opening, told in full on the name's own page.
Out loud, and in short
Amaia
ah-MY-ah
In Basque and Spanish it is three syllables, ah-MAH-ya, with the stress in the middle and every vowel sounded. American speakers most often say ah-MY-ah, and ah-MAY-ah turns up too. All three are in real use, so it helps to decide which one you want and say it first.
- Maia — The most natural short form in English, and a well-established given name in its own right.
- Ama — Family-level, informal; also an independent given name in parts of West Africa.
- Mai — Informal and clipped; stands alone as a given name in Japanese and Vietnamese.
Emerie
EM-uh-ree
Three syllables, stress on the first. Identical in sound to Emery and Emory; a two-syllable EM-ree also occurs in fast speech.
- Em — The default informal short form, shared with Emma, Emily and Emerson.
- Emmy — Informal, and long established as a given name in its own right.
- Emmie — Spelling of Emmy that matches the -ie ending of the full name.
- Emme — Used both as a nickname and, in recent decades, as a standalone name.
- Also Ree.
Is it right for you
The differences that decide it, laid out by what you want
Choose by what you want
Choose Amaia if you want…
- a name holding steadyAmaia is holding its place on the charts
Choose Emerie if you want…
- a name on the way upup 46 places on the charts in five years
- plenty of nickname options5 recorded short forms — Em, Emmy and Emmie
Each line is a measured difference between the two names — a rank, a count, a recorded form — never a judgement of either. Save the one that answers your question; it lands on your shortlist.
The trade-offs, name by name
Amaia
Strengths
- Spelled the way it sounds once heard: five letters, no silent letters, no doubled consonants.
- The Amaya spelling is already known in the US, so people can place the name even when they meet this version for the first time.
- Works without translation in Basque, Spanish and English, and sits easily alongside Maya, Amara and Amelia.
To consider
- Amaya is the more widely recognized spelling in the US, so Amaia will be respelled with a y fairly often — a lifelong small correction rather than a real obstacle.
- Pronunciation genuinely varies: ah-MY-ah, ah-MAH-ya and ah-MAY-ah are all heard. Families who want the Basque three-syllable version usually end up saying so on the first introduction.
- The Basque reading, "the end", strikes some people as an odd thing to name a child. It is worth knowing before a relative looks it up, and the place-name reading is equally defensible.
Emerie
Strengths
- Sounds exactly like Emery, a spelling most Americans already recognize, so it is understood the first time it is said aloud.
- Comes with short forms in long use — Em, Emmy, Emme — none of which need explaining.
- Traceable in the written record for roughly a thousand years, from Germanic Emmerich through Norman Aimery to English Emery.
To consider
- The sound has at least four live spellings — Emery, Emory, Emerie, Emmerie — so expect to spell it out at the pharmacy and on forms, for life. Choosing the -ie form means accepting that most people's first guess will be Emery.
- Emery is given to boys and girls alike in the US. The -ie ending reads as a girl's name to most American eyes, but the spoken name carries no such signal, so a substitute teacher may guess either way.
- It sits inside a crowded Em- family — Emma, Emily, Emerson, Emmy. A child may not meet another Emerie, but she will likely answer to Em alongside two or three others.
Documented properties of each name — how it spells, travels and shortens — not opinions about the child.
With your last name
Say both in full. The notes are facts about letters and sound — a rhyme, a shared initial, the monogram — not a verdict on either name.
Type a last name to hear Amaia and Emerie in full.
Weighing the whole shortlist? Run the full comparison — up to eight names with your last name, initials, classroom projections and a printable report.
Decide together
Nobody names a baby alone
Still torn between Amaia and Emerie?
Put both to the vote.
One link to your partner, your parents, your sister. Each of them gets the two names, a one-tap answer and room to say why — and every reply lands in one place.
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More than two in the running? Settle it with a bracket or run the full comparison with your last name.
More head-to-heads
Same measures, different pair. Sixty more are dealt daily in the arena.
Amaia or Emerie — the short answers
- Which is more popular, Amaia or Emerie?
- Emerie, in 2025: Emerie ranked #553 with 548 babies; Amaia ranked #554 with 547 babies.
- Which name is rising faster, Amaia or Emerie?
- Emerie. Over the last five years Amaia moved up 11 places; Emerie moved up 46 places.
- Which is the older name, Amaia or Emerie?
- Amaia entered the US charts in 1993; Emerie entered the US charts in 1994. On the American record, Amaia is the older name.
- How many people are named Amaia and Emerie?
- About 5,500 people named Amaia are estimated to be alive in the US today. About 6,800 people named Emerie are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- Will there be other Amaias or Emeries in the classroom?
- Amaia will almost certainly be the only one in school. Emerie will almost certainly be the only one in school.
US figures from the Social Security Administration, 1880–2025. Votes are battle voters on this site, not the birth record. Data & methodology
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