Eliot
Feminine · “my God is Yahweh”
Eliot is given to both — 573 girls and 7,892 boys since 1880. See Eliot as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Eliot is a medieval diminutive that became a surname and then, three times over, a name women chose for themselves. Mary Ann Evans published as George Eliot; the poet T. S. Eliot's surname became a given name for both sexes; and Eliot appears on American girls in small numbers, peaking in 2018.
How old is the name Eliot?
Eliot first appears in US birth records in 1987 — 38 years ago. The typical Eliot is a kid of about 12 — this name's wave is very recent. About 600 people named Eliot are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Eliot most popular?
Eliot peaked in 2018, reaching #4001 nationally. Today it ranks #6116, 2,115 places below that high. See the whole 2018 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Eliyahu to Eliot
The story of Eliot
Elias was a common medieval English name, and its diminutives Eliot, Elliot and Elliott hardened into surnames by the fourteenth century. Mary Ann Evans took George Eliot as a pen name in 1857 because, as she later explained, novels by women were not taken seriously; she published Middlemarch under it and became one of the most respected novelists in English while the name did the work of shielding her. The surname's later fame through T. S. Eliot kept it visible. Its use as a given name is twentieth-century and mostly male; the girls' use is small, recent, and arguably closes a circle that Evans opened.
Meaning
my God is Yahweh, through Elijah
Eliot descends from Elias, the Greek and Latin form of Hebrew Eliyahu — 'my God is Yahweh', a name that is itself a declaration against the worship of Baal. Medieval English formed Eliot and Elliott as diminutives of Elias with the Old French -ot ending, and those became surnames. So the name is a small Elijah, and the theological claim in it is complete and unusually pointed.
How the name formed
- Eliyahu
- Elias
- Eliot
Related forms: Elliot · Elliott · Elie
Pronouncing Eliot
EL-ee-ut
Three syllables, stress on the first, with the last two reduced. Many American speakers compress it to two, EL-yut. Identical to Elliot and Elliott; the spellings differ only in how many l's and t's they carry.
Nicknames for Eliot
Moderate
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
- 1987
- Most girls named
- 201836 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #4001reached in 2018
- Change vs 2024
- +171.4%19 in 2025, from 7
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.
Eliot in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Elliot in English — spelling variant
- Elliott in English — spelling variant
- Elie in French — related form
Eliots among us
people named Eliot are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 84,593 born in 2025 was named Eliot
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Eliot
- #6116
- Eliot on the 2025 chart
- #396
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Eliot went to 19 girls in 2025, but Elliott and Elliot are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 749, which makes it the 396th most-given girls’ name of the year — 5,720 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 2,146 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 84,593 for Eliot itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Maresa test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Eliot's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Maresa climbed just as high around 1968, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Maresa's path sketches the road Eliot is walking now.
Eliot sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Eliot beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Eliot in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Eli and Ellie are both current, popular short forms in their own right.
- The meaning is settled and expressible in four words.
- It has a genuine and unusually resonant history of use by women.
- In current use it is far more common on boys and will be read that way.
- Eliot, Elliot and Elliott all circulate and hers will be written another way.
- Two- and three-syllable pronunciations both circulate.
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What they receive
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Eliot
Feminine · #6116 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Eliots are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Eliot are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Eliot?
- Eliot is one of 3 recorded spellings. Elliott is the more common one — 489 births in 2025 against 19 for Eliot.
- How popular is the name Eliot in 2025?
- Eliot ranks #6116 among US girl names in 2025, with 19 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Eliot?
- About 1 in every 84,593 US girls born in 2025 was named Eliot — 19 in all.
- Will my child share the name Eliot with classmates?
- Eliot will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Eliot
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Alvina#6116 · Mena#6116 · Harvey#6116 · Kellie#6116 · Alden#6116 · Jeanna#6116 · Sammi#6116 · Mamie#6116
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Eliot? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Eliot and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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