Emilie
Feminine
Emilie is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 26,654 girls against 7 boys since 1880.
Emilie is the French, German and Scandinavian form of a name that began as a Roman family name, and it has been carried on American birth records without a break for as long as those records have been kept. Said the American way it lands on the first syllable and glides out — EM-uh-lee; said the French way it opens with a bright ay- and leans on the end. Either way, the spelling is instantly readable to anyone who knows Emily, which is nearly everyone.
How old is the name Emilie?
Emilie was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Emilie alive today was born around 1992, making them about 33 years old. About 20,500 people named Emilie are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Emilie most popular?
Emilie peaked in 1880, reaching #227 nationally. Today it ranks #1309, 1,082 places below that high. See the whole 1880 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Aemilius to Emilie
The story of Emilie
The name starts with the gens Aemilia, one of the patrician families of the Roman Republic, whose women were all called Aemilia. That feminine form outlived Rome as Emilia and then split across Europe: Emily in English, Emilia in Italian, Spanish and Polish, and Emilie in French, German, Danish and Norwegian. The French Émilie was well established by the eighteenth century — Émilie du Châtelet, who translated Newton's Principia into French, carried it. In the United States the -ie spelling has always run alongside the far more common Emily, kept alive partly by French and German-speaking families and, more recently, by its strength in Denmark and Norway.
Meaningscholars disagree
from the Roman family name Aemilius, usually connected to Latin aemulus, "rival, emulating"
Two accounts compete. The traditional one links the gens name Aemilius to Latin aemulus, "rival" or "emulating" — this is the reading you will see in most name dictionaries. The other holds that Aemilius, like several old Roman clan names, is pre-Latin and probably Etruscan, in which case its original sense is lost. Both are respectable; neither has won.
How the name formed
- Aemilius
- Aemilia
- Emilia
- Emilie
Related forms: Émilie · Emilie · Emilie · Emily · Emilia · Emílie
Pronouncing Emilie
EM-uh-lee
That is the usual American pronunciation, identical to Emily. The French Émilie is ay-mee-LEE, with the stress at the end, and German speakers say eh-MEE-lee-uh. If you want the French version in the US, expect to say it more than once.
Nicknames for Emilie
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 girls named
- 2004658 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #227reached in 1880
- Change vs 2022
- −2.9%170 in 2025, from 175
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.
Emilie in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Émilie in French — same name
- Emilie in German — same name
- Emilie in Danish and Norwegian — same name
- Emily in English — related form
- Emilia in Italian and Spanish — related form
- Emílie in Czech — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Emilies among us
people named Emilie are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 9,455 born in 2025 was named Emilie
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Emilie 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 Emilie is headed
Emilie 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.
Emilie beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Emilie in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The spelling needs no explanation — anyone who can read Emily can read Emilie, so it is never truly unfamiliar.
- Ready-made short forms already in wide use: Em, Emmie, Millie. Nothing has to be invented.
- Works unchanged in French, German, Danish and Norwegian, which matters for a family that crosses languages.
- Continuously present on American records rather than tied to one fashion wave, so it does not date to a particular decade.
- Distinct enough on paper to stay uncommon in a classroom while sounding entirely familiar out loud.
- It will be written Emily by default, for life — on forms, on class lists, in emails. The sound is the same, so most people never hear the difference and have no reason to guess the -ie ending.
- Spoken aloud in the US, it is indistinguishable from a name that has been near the top of the charts for decades. She may be the only Emilie in the school and still one of several Ems in the room.
- Emilia and Amelia are separate names with separate roots, and all three get mixed together constantly. Worth expecting the occasional correction.
- If you want the accent — Émilie — American systems often drop it, so decide early which version is the official one.
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What they receive
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Emilie
Feminine · #1309 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Emilies are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 20,500 people named Emilie are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Emilie in 2025?
- Emilie ranks #1309 among US girl names in 2025, with 170 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Emilie?
- About 1 in every 9,455 US girls born in 2025 was named Emilie — 170 in all.
- Will my child share the name Emilie with classmates?
- Emilie will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Emilie
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Ansley#1309 · Renley#1309 · Zaina#1309 · Chanel#1309 · Aylah#1309 · Hollyn#1309 · Zaya#1309 · Roxanne#1309
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Emilie? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Emilie and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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