Emmette
Masculine · “of Emma's family”
Emmette is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 812 boys against 7 girls since 1880.
Emmette carries one of the rarer things in English naming: a surname built on a woman's name. Almost every English surname of the son-of kind points at a father. This one points at a mother, and the mother was called Emma.
How old is the name Emmette?
Emmette first appears in US birth records in 1912 — 113 years ago. The typical Emmette alive today was born around 1942, making them about 83 years old. About 400 people named Emmette are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Emmette most popular?
Emmette peaked in 1939, reaching #1532 nationally. See the whole 1939 chart.
Where it comes from
From Emma to Emmette
The story of Emmette
Surnames built from women's names are scarce in English, because inheritance ran through fathers and the clerks wrote down what inheritance cared about. A handful survived anyway, usually where a mother was the notable figure or the only surviving parent, and Emmett is one of them. It went to Ireland with English settlement, and there it produced the name's most famous bearer. Robert Emmet led a short and unsuccessful rising in Dublin, was caught, and made a speech from the dock asking that nobody write his epitaph until his country had taken its place among the nations of the earth. Irish schoolchildren learned it by heart for the next century and a half, which is a strange kind of afterlife for a young man who had failed at everything he tried.
Meaning
of Emma's family
Emmot was a medieval English pet form of Emma, and the surname Emmett is formed from it. Emma itself is Germanic and carries a word meaning whole or universal. The line is documented and not disputed.
How the name formed
- Emma
- Emmot
- Emmett
- Emmette
Pronouncing Emmette
EM-it
Two syllables, stress in front. The extra e on the end is silent and changes nothing that can be heard.
Nicknames for Emmette
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
- 1912
- Most boys named
- 191821 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1532reached in 1939
- Change vs 2019
- 0.0%7 in 2023, from 7
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.
Emmettes among us
people named Emmette are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Emmette sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- A documented history stands behind it, running from a medieval English mother through an Irish courtroom.
- Em works as a short form for a child of either sex and needs no introduction.
- It is familiar in sound while being rare on paper, which is a comfortable place for a name to sit.
- The spelling is recorded for a few girls, but nearly every child with it is a boy.
- Emmett is by far the commoner spelling, and the silent final e will be dropped by most people writing it down.
- It reads as belonging to an older generation in America, which is either the appeal or the obstacle.
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What they receive
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Emmette
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Emmettes are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 400 people named Emmette are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Emmette in 2025?
- Emmette is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Emmette with classmates?
- Emmette will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More E names
The most-given names starting with E, all years combined.
Edward#224 · Eric#273 · Ethan#24 · Eugene#943 · Elijah#7 · Ernest#1038 · Earl#2230 · Evan#153
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Emmette? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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