Elliot
Feminine · “from Elias/Elijah”
Elliot is given to both — 7,008 girls and 58,592 boys since 1880. See Elliot as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Elliot began as a surname built from Elias — the medieval English form of Elijah — softened by French diminutive endings until the prophet's name came out sounding like a nickname. Border families in southern Scotland carried it for centuries before anyone thought to hand it back to a baby as a first name. It runs light in the mouth, three syllables that most speakers slide into two and a half.
How old is the name Elliot?
Elliot first appears in US birth records in 1961 — 64 years ago. The typical Elliot is a kid of about 8 — this name's wave is very recent. About 7,000 people named Elliot are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Elliot most popular?
Elliot peaked in 2020, reaching #572 nationally. Today it ranks #1034, 462 places below that high. See the whole 2020 chart.
Elliot appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From Eliyahu to Elliot
The story of Elliot
The Hebrew name Eliyahu reached western Europe as Elias, and by the Middle Ages English speakers were using it in the clipped form Elis. French diminutive suffixes turned that into Eliot, and once a personal name settles into everyday use it tends to harden into a surname — which is what happened, most visibly among the riding families of the Scottish Borders, where Elliot became one of the great Liddesdale names. From there it made the usual journey of English surnames: into the middle-name slot, then into the first-name slot outright. The move to a given name again is recent enough that the name's wave in the US is still young, and it charts alongside its use in Canada, Scotland, and England and Wales.
Meaning
from Elias/Elijah, Hebrew for 'my God is Yahweh'
The chain is well documented: Hebrew Eliyahu became Greek and Latin Elias, which medieval England shortened to Elis and French speakers dressed with the diminutive endings -ot and -et. A minority of English Elliot families instead trace their surname to Old English personal names beginning Æthel-, but the Elias route accounts for the name as it is used today.
How the name formed
- Eliyahu
- Elias
- Elis
- Eliot
- Elliot
Related forms: Elias · Élie · Elías · Elia · Elliott · Eliot
Pronouncing Elliot
EL-ee-ut
Stress falls on the first syllable. Many speakers compress the middle, so it lands closer to EL-yut in ordinary speech. The spellings Elliot, Elliott and Eliot are all said the same way.
Nicknames for Elliot
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
- 1961
- Most girls named
- 2019511 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #572reached in 2020
- Change vs 2024
- −13.6%241 in 2025, from 279
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.
Elliot in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Elias in German, Scandinavian — related form
- Élie in French — related form
- Elías in Spanish — related form
- Elia in Italian — related form
- Elliott in English — spelling variant
- Eliot in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Ohio.
Elliots among us
people named Elliot are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 6,669 born in 2025 was named Elliot
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Elliot
- #1034
- Elliot on the 2025 chart
- #396
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Elliot went to 241 girls in 2025, but Elliott and Eliot 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 — 638 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 2,146 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 6,669 for Elliot 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 Roxanna test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Elliot's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Roxanna climbed just as high around 1954, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Roxanna's path sketches the road Elliot is walking now.
Elliot 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
Where Elliot is headed
Elliot is easing off slowly — about 21% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
Medium 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.
Elliot beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Elliot in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Eli is a ready-made short form that already stands alone as a name, so the child has a formal and an informal option from day one.
- Recognized across the English-speaking world — it charts in Canada, Scotland, and England and Wales as well as the US.
- Its parent name, Elias, has close relatives in German, French, Spanish and Italian, so the root travels even where this spelling does not.
- Documented as a surname since the Middle Ages, which means centuries of written record behind a name that only recently became common for babies.
- The three spellings — Elliot, Elliott and Eliot — sound identical, so this is a name that gets spelled aloud for life. Choosing the one-T version means correcting people who default to Elliott.
- Nearly every child given this spelling is a boy. A girl named Elliot will be read as a boy on paper more often than not, and that is worth deciding you are comfortable with rather than discovering later.
- The Ellie short form pulls toward girls' names, so a boy called Elliot may end up with Eli or El instead by his own preference.
- The name's rise is recent enough that most people carrying it are still young; adults named Elliot are noticeably thinner on the ground than children.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Elliot
Feminine · #1034 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Elliots are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 7,000 people named Elliot are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Elliot?
- Elliot is one of 3 recorded spellings. Elliott is the more common one — 489 births in 2025 against 241 for Elliot.
- How popular is the name Elliot in 2025?
- Elliot ranks #1034 among US girl names in 2025, with 241 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Elliot?
- About 1 in every 6,669 US girls born in 2025 was named Elliot — 241 in all.
- Will my child share the name Elliot with classmates?
- Elliot will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Elliot
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Mikaela#1034 · Bernadette#1034 · Jovi#1034 · Montana#1033 · Eleni#1038 · Kassidy#1038 · Alexa#1029 · Naiari#1029
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Elliot? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Elliot and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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