Ely
Feminine
Ely is given to both — 616 girls and 4,471 boys since 1880. See Ely as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Three unrelated names have collapsed onto these two syllables. Ely is an English cathedral city, a Hebrew name in a spelling that avoids the doubled letter, and — most relevant to the recent girls' figures — a Spanish short form clipped out of Elizabeth, Elena or Elisa. The recent peak points firmly at the third.
How old is the name Ely?
Ely first appears in US birth records in 1918 — 107 years ago. The typical Ely alive today was born around 2012, making them about 13 years old. About 600 people named Ely are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Ely most popular?
Ely peaked in 2022, reaching #4582 nationally. Today it ranks #6838, 2,256 places below that high. See the whole 2022 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Elisabet to Ely
The story of Ely
Spanish hypocoristics tend to cut from the front of the word and keep a stressed syllable: Elizabeth and Elisabet give Eli, Elena gives Ele and Eli, Eliseo gives the same. Written with a y instead of an i, the clipping looks like a name in its own right, and in the United States that is exactly what it has become — a full legal given name rather than a diary spelling of a longer one. The English place name and the biblical Eli sit alongside it in the records without being its cause.
Meaningscholars disagree
Depends on the source: "eel district", "ascended", or simply a clipping of Elizabeth
The Cambridgeshire city is Old English ēl-ge, "eel district", from the fisheries in the fens. The Hebrew Eli is ʿēlī, from a root meaning "ascend" or "exalt". Neither of those explains a female name rising in the 2020s; the ordinary Spanish and Portuguese practice of clipping a long name down to two letters plus a vowel does. When the same spelling has three independent sources, no single reading can be called settled.
How the name formed
- Elisabet
- Eli
- Ely
Related forms: Eli · עֵלִי (Eli) · Éli
Pronouncing Ely
EH-lee
The Spanish-derived name is EH-lee with a short front vowel. The English city and the biblical name are both EE-lye or EE-lee depending on the tradition, so the spelling gives an American reader no reliable instruction. Expect to correct it.
Nicknames for Ely
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
- 1918
- Most girls named
- 202230 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #4582reached in 2022
- Change vs 2024
- −44.8%16 in 2025, from 29
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.
Ely in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Eli in Spanish — spelling variant
- עֵלִי (Eli) in Hebrew — related form
- Éli in Hungarian — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas.
Elys among us
people named Ely are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 100,454 born in 2025 was named Ely
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Ely
- #6838
- Ely on the 2025 chart
- #726
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Ely went to 16 girls in 2025, but Elly, Elli and Eli are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 236, which makes it the 726th most-given girls’ name of the year — 6,112 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 6,810 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 100,454 for Ely 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 Abeer test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Ely's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Abeer climbed just as high around 1996, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Abeer's path sketches the road Ely is walking now.
Ely 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
Ely beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Ely in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Three letters, two syllables, and no consonant cluster anywhere — it is about as easy to say as a name can be.
- It works in both English and Spanish without changing shape, which is rare for a short name.
- The final y gives it a written softness that the i spelling does not have.
- Readers will guess EE-lye from the English town at least some of the time.
- It is used for boys as well, in the Eli tradition, so the spelling alone does not signal sex.
- As a clipping it can read as a nickname on formal documents.
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Ely
Feminine · #6838 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Elys 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 Ely are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Ely?
- Ely is one of 4 recorded spellings. Elly is the more common one — 129 births in 2025 against 16 for Ely.
- How popular is the name Ely in 2025?
- Ely ranks #6838 among US girl names in 2025, with 16 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Ely?
- About 1 in every 100,454 US girls born in 2025 was named Ely — 16 in all.
- Will my child share the name Ely with classmates?
- Ely will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Ely
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Malana#6838 · Jeannie#6838 · Maxie#6838 · Nicol#6838 · Chaney#6838 · Keana#6838 · Concetta#6838 · Pheobe#6838
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Ely? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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