Emma
Feminine · Germanic roots · “whole”
Emma is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 776,439 girls against 1,733 boys since 1880. See Emma as a boy name
Emma came to England with a Norman queen in the eleventh century, was handed to the heroine of one of Jane Austen's novels in the early nineteenth, and has been shortened to Em by English speakers for centuries. Two syllables, both open and easy, with a soft landing on the second. It is one of the small handful of names that need no explanation in English, French, German or Italian.
How old is the name Emma?
Emma was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Emma alive today was born around 2004, making them about 21 years old. About 573,000 people named Emma are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Emma most popular?
Emma peaked in 2008, reaching #1 nationally. Today it ranks #3, 2 places below that high. See the whole 2008 chart.
Emma appears on these lists:
- Short and sweet: names of four letters or fewer
- Transatlantic hits: loved on both sides of the ocean
- Every #1 name in American history
- America's top 100 names right now
- Vowel names: soft starts from A to O
- Greatest Generation names (born 1901–1927)
- all guides
Works in British, French and Scandinavian families too:
Where it comes from
From Irmin- (Germanic name element) to Emma
The story of Emma
The name is Germanic, born as a pet form of the long Ermin- and Irmin- compounds used in medieval Frankish and German families. It reached England through Emma of Normandy, who was queen twice over in the eleventh century — first as wife of Æthelred, then of Cnut — and the name settled into English use behind her. It faded in the later Middle Ages and returned in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when Jane Austen gave it to the title character of her 1815 novel and Flaubert gave it to Emma Bovary a few decades later. It has never needed translating since: the same four letters work across most of western Europe.
Meaning
whole, universal
Emma began as a short form of longer Germanic names built on the element ermin or irmin, meaning whole or universal — names like Ermengard and Irmingard. The short form outlived nearly all of them.
Cultural footprint
Emma Stone (b. 1988) — Two-time Oscar winner (La La Land, Poor Things)
Emma Watson (b. 1990) — Harry Potter's Hermione and a UN Women advocate
Emma Thompson (b. 1959) — The only person with Oscars for both acting and screenwriting
Emma Roberts (b. 1991) — American Horror Story star, Julia Roberts's niece
Source: Wikidata — the one source on this page that is not an official agency.
How the name formed
- Irmin-Germanic name element
- Ermengard / Irmingard
- Emma
Related forms: Emma · Emma · Emma · Ema · Emmi · Irma
Pronouncing Emma
EM-uh
Said the same way in English, French and German, with only a slight difference in how the final vowel is colored. Practically nobody mispronounces it.
Nicknames for Emma
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
- 200421,625 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1reached in 2008
- Change vs 2022
- −12.1%12,754 in 2025, from 14,512
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.
Emma in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Emma in German — same name
- Emma in French — same name
- Emma in Italian — same name
- Ema in Portuguese — spelling variant
- Emmi in Finnish — related form
- Irma in German — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida. INSEE rounds every published count to the nearest five for statistical confidentiality; the ranks are calculated from the exact figures. International figures from Statistics Canada, INSEE, Office for National Statistics, National Records of Scotland. Sources
Emmas among us
people named Emma are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 126 born in 2025 was named Emma
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 Jennifer test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Emma's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Jennifer climbed just as high around 1970, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jennifer's path sketches the road Emma is walking now.
Emma has held the top-100 across 10 different decades — it has never depended on fashion, and names like that read the same at any age.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Emma is headed
Emma 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.
Emma beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Emma in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A spelling everyone already knows — no repeating it over the phone, no correcting it on forms.
- Works unchanged in French, German and Italian, and currently charts in Canada, France, England & Wales and Scotland.
- A documented record in England going back to the eleventh century, so it reads as old rather than of-the-moment.
- Established short forms in real use: Em for everyday, Emmy if a longer nickname is wanted.
- It is one of the most-used girls' names in the country, so an Emma is likely to share her name at some point in school or in a workplace.
- The bulk of Emmas alive today are young adults, which for now gives the name a distinct generational feel — though the medieval and Victorian layers sit underneath it.
- Emmy is shared territory with Emily, Emmeline and Emerson, and the two are sometimes confused in speech.
- Short and vowel-heavy, it pairs awkwardly with surnames that also begin with a vowel — worth saying the full name aloud a few times.
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What they receive
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Emma
Feminine · Germanic roots · #3 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Emmas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 573,000 people named Emma are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Emma in 2025?
- Emma ranks #3 among US girl names in 2025, with 12,754 babies given the name.
- How common is the name Emma?
- About 1 in every 126 US girls born in 2025 was named Emma — 12,754 in all.
- Will my child share the name Emma with classmates?
- Roughly 1 in 5 classrooms will have a child named Emma.
Ranked beside Emma
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Amelia#4 · Charlotte#2 · Olivia#1 · Sophia#5 · Mia#6 · Isabella#7 · Evelyn#8 · Sofia#9
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Emma? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Emma and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration; international figures from national statistics agencies. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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