Emmeline
Feminine
Emmeline came into English with the Normans, a French diminutive that England kept, dropped, and picked up again in the Victorian era. It has three unhurried syllables and ends on a sound you can call across a yard, and it has been shortened to Em and Emmy for centuries. In English history it belongs most firmly to Emmeline Pankhurst, the British suffragette.
How old is the name Emmeline?
Emmeline first appears in US birth records in 1888 — 137 years ago. The typical Emmeline is a kid of about 9 — this name's wave is very recent. About 5,900 people named Emmeline are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Emmeline most popular?
Emmeline peaked in 2017, reaching #753 nationally. Today it ranks #922, 169 places below that high. See the whole 2017 chart.
Emmeline appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From Amalina to Emmeline
The story of Emmeline
The oldest layer is Germanic: Amalina, a pet form built on names starting with amal, "work". Old French reshaped it as Emeline, and Norman families carried it to England after 1066, where it appears in medieval records before thinning out. English speakers revived it in the nineteenth century, along with much else medieval, and the doubled-m spelling Emmeline became the standard English form. French kept its own Émeline, so the two versions have been running in parallel ever since.
Meaning
from a Germanic element meaning "work, effort"
The root is the Old German amal, "work" or "labor", which sits behind a whole family of medieval names — Emma among them. So Emmeline and Emma arrive at the same door from different directions rather than one being a stretched version of the other.
How the name formed
- Amalina
- Emeline
- Emmeline
Related forms: Émeline · Emeline · Emmaline · Emelina · Amalina
Pronouncing Emmeline
EM-uh-line
Stress lands on the first syllable. The ending is genuinely split in American use: some say -line to rhyme with "fine", others say -lin or -leen. Any of the three is correct, so it helps to pick one and repeat it early.
Nicknames for Emmeline
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
- 1888
- Most girls named
- 2016361 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #753reached in 2017
- Change vs 2023
- +2.9%284 in 2025, from 276
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.
Emmeline in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Émeline in French — same name
- Emeline in English — spelling variant
- Emmaline in English — spelling variant
- Emelina in Spanish — related form
- Amalina in German — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Emmelines among us
people named Emmeline are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 5,659 born in 2025 was named Emmeline
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Emmeline
- #922
- Emmeline on the 2025 chart
- #635
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Emmeline went to 284 girls in 2025, but Emeline is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 346, which makes it the 635th most-given girls’ name of the year — 287 places above the chart.
- Emmeline284
- Emeline62
About 1 girl in 4,645 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 5,659 for Emmeline 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 Irine test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Emmeline's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Irine climbed just as high around 1910, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Irine's path sketches the road Emmeline is walking now.
Emmeline 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 Emmeline is headed
Emmeline 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.
Emmeline beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Emmeline in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Short forms are already established and understood — Emmy, Em, Emmie — so no one has to invent one.
- The spelling is decodable on sight for anyone who knows Emma or Emily, even when they have not met the full name.
- A documented record in English going back to the Norman period, with a French twin, Émeline, still in use.
- Carries the full-name-plus-nickname flexibility that works from a nursery to a signature line.
- The ending has no single agreed pronunciation in the US: -line, -lin and -leen all circulate. Expect to correct people gently, or to accept more than one version.
- Emmaline and Emeline are both live spellings, so the doubled m with -ine will need spelling out over the phone fairly often.
- Em- names are thick on the ground among children right now, so a child called Emmy may well share that short form with an Emma or an Emily nearby, even while the full name stays uncommon.
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What they receive
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Emmeline
Feminine · #922 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Emmelines are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 5,900 people named Emmeline are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Emmeline?
- Emmeline is the most-used spelling in US records — 284 of the 346 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Emeline.
- How popular is the name Emmeline in 2025?
- Emmeline ranks #922 among US girl names in 2025, with 284 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Emmeline?
- About 1 in every 5,659 US girls born in 2025 was named Emmeline — 284 in all.
- Will my child share the name Emmeline with classmates?
- Emmeline will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Emmeline
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Winifred#922 · Cheyenne#920 · Clare#924 · Giana#920 · Maddie#925 · Ivey#925 · Elisabeth#925 · Elyse#918
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Emmeline? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Emmeline and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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