Amelia
Feminine · Germanic roots · “From the Germanic element amal”
Amelia is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 281,130 girls against 284 boys since 1880.
Amelia came into English through the Hanoverian court in the eighteenth century, and by 1751 Henry Fielding had put it on the title page of a novel. It has four unhurried syllables that most people shorten within a week of meeting one — Millie, Amy, Mia. It also carries a long association with women who wrote about going places: an American aviator and an English novelist-egyptologist among them.
How old is the name Amelia?
Amelia was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Amelia is a kid of about 12 — this name's wave is very recent. About 244,000 people named Amelia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Amelia most popular?
Amelia peaked in 2024, reaching #3 nationally. Today it ranks #4, 1 places below that high. See the whole 2024 chart.
Amelia appears on these lists:
- Transatlantic hits: loved on both sides of the ocean
- America's top 100 names right now
- Vowel names: soft starts from A to O
- Gorgeous — and about to be everywhere
- Generation Alpha names (born 2013 onward)
- Three-syllable names with room to move
- all guides
Works in British families too:
Where it comes from
From Amal (Germanic name element) to Amelia
The story of Amelia
The root is the Germanic amal, 'work', an element that appears in the name of the Amal dynasty of Ostrogothic kings and in medieval names such as Amalberga and Amalia. Amalia traveled through German-speaking Europe and reached Britain with the Hanoverians in the eighteenth century, where it settled into the English spelling Amelia. English fiction kept it in circulation from there — Fielding's novel of 1751, and Amelia Sedley in Thackeray's Vanity Fair a century later. It has been on American records since the earliest national name counts, quietly present for generations before the recent climb.
Meaning
From the Germanic element amal, 'work' or 'labor'
The one real tangle is that Amelia has been used interchangeably with the Latin Aemilia (the source of Emilia and Emily), which comes from an entirely different root. The two names have shared spellings and pronunciations for centuries, but their origins are separate.
Cultural footprint
Amelia Earhart (b. 1897) — First woman to fly solo across the Atlantic
Amelia Bloomer (b. 1818) — Suffragist whose dress-reform trousers were nicknamed "bloomers" after her
Source: Wikidata — the one source on this page that is not an official agency.
How the name formed
- AmalGermanic name element
- Amalia
- Amelia
Related forms: Amélie · Amalia · Amalie · Amália · Amalia · Amelia
Pronouncing Amelia
uh-MEEL-yuh
Also said in four syllables, uh-MEE-lee-uh. Both are standard in American English and neither needs correcting; the four-syllable version is a little more common in British use.
Nicknames for Amelia
High
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 201912,944 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3reached in 2024
- Change vs 2022
- +2.3%12,699 in 2025, from 12,415
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Amelia in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Amélie in French — same name
- Amalia in Spanish, Italian, Greek — same name
- Amalie in German, Danish — same name
- Amália in Portuguese, Hungarian — spelling variant
- Amalia in Dutch — same name
- Amelia in Polish — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida. International figures from Office for National Statistics, National Records of Scotland, Statistics Canada. Sources
Amelias among us
people named Amelia are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 127 born in 2025 was named Amelia
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Patricia test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Amelia's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Patricia climbed just as high around 1937, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Patricia's path sketches the road Amelia is walking now.
Amelia is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Amelia is headed
Amelia should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Amelia beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Amelia in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- On American records since the earliest national name counts, so it has never needed reviving — the current wave is a return, not an invention.
- Three settled short forms already in general use — Millie, Amy, Mia — so a bearer can pick her own level of formality without explaining it.
- Charts independently in England and Wales, Scotland and Canada, and travels as Amélie, Amalia, Amalie and Amália across the Continent.
- Spelled as it sounds for English readers; the letters rarely have to be repeated over the phone.
- It is genuinely widespread at the moment. Expect another Amelia in the year group, and expect Emilia, Amelie and Emily in the same room.
- The two names have been blurred for centuries, so she will be written down as Emilia now and then, and asked which one she is.
- Because the wave is recent, most Amelias in the US today are children and teenagers; the name will read as young for a long while yet.
- Every likely nickname — Millie, Mia, Amy — is a well-used name on its own, so the short form won't add distinctiveness if that is what you're after.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Amelia to the vote.
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What they receive
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Amelia
Feminine · Germanic roots · #4 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Amelias are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 244,000 people named Amelia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Amelia in 2025?
- Amelia ranks #4 among US girl names in 2025, with 12,699 babies given the name.
- How common is the name Amelia?
- About 1 in every 127 US girls born in 2025 was named Amelia — 12,699 in all.
- Will my child share the name Amelia with classmates?
- Roughly 1 in 5 classrooms will have a child named Amelia.
Ranked beside Amelia
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Emma#3 · Sophia#5 · Mia#6 · Charlotte#2 · Olivia#1 · Isabella#7 · Evelyn#8 · Sofia#9
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Amelia? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Amelia and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration; international figures from national statistics agencies. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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