Ellijah
Masculine · “Hebrew Eliyahu”
Elijah breaks English spelling rules. A single l after a short e, a j saying a j sound in the middle of a word, an -ah ending: none of that is native English orthography. It survives because the name came through Latin and Greek transliteration, and transliteration does not obey the receiving language.
How old is the name Ellijah?
Ellijah first appears in US birth records in 1993 — 32 years ago. The typical Ellijah alive today was born around 2008, making them about 17 years old. About 600 people named Ellijah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Ellijah most popular?
Ellijah peaked in 2008, reaching #3057 nationally. Today it ranks #8910, 5,853 places below that high. See the whole 2008 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Eliyahu to Ellijah
The story of Ellijah
Biblical names entered English through Greek and Latin, and both languages transliterated the Hebrew rather than adapting it, so the results sit oddly in English orthography and always have. Elijah, Isaiah, Hezekiah, Jeremiah and Zephaniah all end in -iah, a sequence English generates nowhere else. Jehoshaphat, Nebuchadnezzar and Melchizedek keep consonant clusters English would never assemble. The h in Sarah and Hannah does nothing. Speakers notice this, and respellings are the language quietly asserting its own rules: doubling the l in Ellijah, dropping the h in Sara, regularising the -iah to -iya. Whether such a respelling is a mistake depends on which system you are measuring against. Against the transliteration it is wrong; against English spelling it is more regular than the original, which is exactly why people keep producing it.
Meaning
Hebrew Eliyahu, my God is Yah
Ellijah is a respelling of Elijah, Hebrew Eliyahu, joining eli, my God, to Yahu, the divine name. The doubled l follows the ordinary English rule that a short vowel before a single consonant is otherwise read long, the rule behind belly, jelly and yellow. The standard spelling breaks that rule because it is a transliteration, not an English formation. The peak of this spelling is 2008.
How the name formed
- Eliyahu
- Elijah
- Ellijah
Related forms: Elijah · Eliyahu · Ilyas
Pronouncing Ellijah
ee-LY-juh
Three syllables, stress on the second. The doubled l does not change the sound, though under English rules it would shorten a preceding stressed vowel.
Nicknames for Ellijah
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
- 1993
- Most boys named
- 200838 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3057reached in 2008
- Change vs 2024
- −33.3%8 in 2025, from 12
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.
Ellijah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Elijah in English — spelling variant
- Eliyahu in Hebrew — same name
- Ilyas in Arabic — same name
Ellijahs among us
people named Ellijah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 213,510 born in 2025 was named Ellijah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Ellijah
- #8910
- Ellijah on the 2025 chart
- #11
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Ellijah went to 8 boys in 2025, but Elijah is the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 11,185, which makes it the 11th most-given boys’ name of the year — 8,899 places above the chart.
- Elijah11,111
- Ellijah8
and 2 rarer spellings.
About 1 boy in 153 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 213,510 for Ellijah 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 Faraz test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Ellijah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Faraz climbed just as high around 1990, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Faraz's path sketches the road Ellijah is walking now.
Ellijah 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
Ellijah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Ellijah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Eli is available as a short form and is a common name on its own.
- The doubled consonant follows ordinary English spelling rules.
- The underlying name is among the oldest in continuous use.
- Elijah is overwhelmingly the standard spelling.
- The doubled l suggests a short first vowel, which is not how it is said.
- Systems and readers will correct it.
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What they receive
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Ellijah
Masculine · #8910 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Ellijahs 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 Ellijah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Ellijah?
- Ellijah is one of 2 recorded spellings. Elijah is the more common one — 11,111 births in 2025 against 8 for Ellijah.
- How popular is the name Ellijah in 2025?
- Ellijah ranks #8910 among US boy names in 2025, with 8 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Ellijah?
- About 1 in every 213,510 US boys born in 2025 was named Ellijah — 8 in all.
- Will my child share the name Ellijah with classmates?
- Ellijah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Ellijah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Davie#8910 · Ned#8910 · Darious#8910 · Alois#8910 · Len#8910 · Barton#8910 · Desmon#8910 · Winfield#8910
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Ellijah? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Ellijah and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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