Emerson
Masculine · “son of Emery”
Emerson is given to both — 33,521 boys and 34,050 girls since 1880. See Emerson as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Emerson began as a family name — literally "Emery's son" — carried through centuries of English record-keeping before anyone thought to hand it to a child at the front of the name. It has the easy three-beat fall of a name read off a ledger, EM-er-son, and it arrives with a short form already waiting in Em. Nineteenth-century America made the surname famous enough that the spelling needs no explaining.
How old is the name Emerson?
Emerson was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Emerson is a kid of about 12 — this name's wave is very recent. About 26,500 people named Emerson are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Emerson most popular?
Emerson peaked in 2025, reaching #254 nationally. Today it ranks #254, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Where it comes from
From Amalric to Emerson
The story of Emerson
Emerson is an English patronymic surname, formed the same way as Jackson and Harrison: the given name Emery plus "son." Emery had reached England with the Normans, descending from a Continental Germanic name whose elements meant work and power, and which also produced Emmerich in German and Amaury in French. The surname settled into English and then American use, and became widely recognizable through the nineteenth-century New England essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson. Its move to the front of the name — as a given name for children, girls especially — belongs to the recent American fashion for surnames used first.
Meaning
son of Emery
Emery itself comes from a Germanic name built from elements meaning "work" and "power, ruler" — so the older layer beneath Emerson is a ruler's name, reached by way of a patronymic surname.
How the name formed
- Amalric
- Emmerich
- Emery
- Emerson
Related forms: Emery · Emory · Emmerich · Amaury · Amerigo · Imre
Pronouncing Emerson
EM-er-son
Three syllables, stress on the first. In fast American speech the middle syllable often reduces, giving EM-ur-sun. No competing pronunciations to explain.
Nicknames for Emerson
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 boys named
- 20251,371 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #254reached in 2025
- Change vs 2022
- +8.0%1,371 in 2025, from 1,269
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.
Emerson in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Emery in English — related form
- Emory in English — spelling variant
- Emmerich in German — related form
- Amaury in French — related form
- Amerigo in Italian — related form
- Imre in Hungarian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Ohio.
Emersons among us
people named Emerson are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 1,246 born in 2025 was named Emerson
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 Terrell test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Emerson's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Terrell climbed just as high around 1985, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Terrell's path sketches the road Emerson is walking now.
Emerson 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 Emerson is headed
Emerson 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.
Emerson beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Emerson in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The spelling is already familiar to English speakers as a surname, so it rarely needs repeating or clarifying.
- Comes with short forms in real use — Em, Emmy — that work for a child of either gender.
- Works for boys and girls with no change of spelling or pronunciation.
- Belongs to a well-documented name line reaching back through Emery to a Continental Germanic original.
- It leans toward girls in American use without settling there, so a boy named Emerson will occasionally be assumed female on paper, and a girl will meet people who expect a boy. Neither is unusual enough to cause trouble; both are worth knowing in advance.
- Em and Emmy are shared with Emma, Emily and Emily's cousins, all of them well represented right now. In a group of children, the nickname may identify less clearly than the full name does.
- It is climbing rather than settled, so the number of Emersons a child meets may grow over their school years — a fast riser tends to mark a cohort.
- As a surname used first, it sometimes reads as a last name on forms and in roll calls, which occasionally puts the name in the wrong column.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Emerson
Masculine · #254 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Emersons are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 26,500 people named Emerson are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Emerson in 2025?
- Emerson ranks #254 among US boy names in 2025, with 1,371 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Emerson?
- About 1 in every 1,246 US boys born in 2025 was named Emerson — 1,371 in all.
- Will my child share the name Emerson with classmates?
- Emerson will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Emerson
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Nash#255 · Crew#256 · Ayden#257 · Walter#251 · Harvey#251 · Zayn#251 · Marcus#258 · Lane#250
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Emerson? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Emerson and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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