Emmily
Feminine · “Latin Aemilius”
The doubled m in Emmily is arguably more correct than the standard spelling. English doubles a consonant to show the vowel before it is short, and the e of Emily is short. Emily breaks its own rule, which is why nobody reading it cold says EE-mily. Emmily fixes what the standard form got wrong.
How old is the name Emmily?
Emmily first appears in US birth records in 1976 — 49 years ago. The typical Emmily alive today was born around 2004, making them about 21 years old. About 1,000 people named Emmily are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Emmily most popular?
Emmily peaked in 2002, reaching #3334 nationally. Today it ranks #8362, 5,028 places below that high. See the whole 2002 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Aemilius to Emmily
The story of Emmily
The doubling rule is one of the few reliable pieces of English spelling and names break it constantly. Between two vowels, a single consonant signals that the first vowel is long and a doubled one that it is short: super and supper, later and latter, holy and holly. Emily has a short e and a single m, which means the spelling predicts EE-mily and everyone says EM-ily anyway, because they have learned the word rather than decoded it. The reason is that the name came into English through Latin and French, which do not use the doubling convention, and its spelling was fixed before English regularised. A great many borrowed words are in the same position: melon, lemon, second and never all have short vowels and single consonants. So a respelling that doubles the letter is applying an English rule to a name that never had one applied.
Meaningnot established
Latin Aemilius, meaning unknown
Emily descends from the Roman family name Aemilius, whose meaning has never been established; the traditional gloss rival, from aemulus, is a guess of the kind Roman antiquarians made freely, and the name may be Etruscan. Emmily is an American respelling with a doubled m. It peaks in 2002, during Emily's twelve-year run at the top of the American girls' list.
How the name formed
- Aemilius
- Emilia
- Emily
- Emmily
Related forms: Emily · Emilia · Emilie
Pronouncing Emmily
EM-uh-lee
Three syllables, stress on the first. Identical to Emily; the doubled m is inaudible and only makes the short vowel predictable from the spelling.
Nicknames for Emmily
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
- 1976
- Most girls named
- 200842 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3334reached in 2002
- Change vs 2024
- −33.3%12 in 2025, from 18
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.
Emmily in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Emily in English — spelling variant
- Emilia in Italian — related form
- Emilie in French — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California.
Emmilys among us
people named Emmily are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 133,939 born in 2025 was named Emmily
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Emmily
- #8362
- Emmily on the 2025 chart
- #37
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Emmily went to 12 girls in 2025, but Emily, Emilly and Emili are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 5,556, which makes it the 37th most-given girls’ name of the year — 8,325 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 289 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 133,939 for Emmily 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 Lacrisha test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Emmily's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Lacrisha climbed just as high around 1979, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Lacrisha's path sketches the road Emmily is walking now.
Emmily 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
Emmily beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Emmily in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Em, Emmy and Millie give three usable short forms.
- The doubled m makes the vowel predictable.
- The sound is among the most familiar in English.
- Emily is overwhelmingly more common and will be written by default.
- The meaning of the underlying Roman name is unknown.
- The respelling will be corrected constantly.
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Emmily
Feminine · #8362 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Emmilys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,000 people named Emmily are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Emmily?
- Emmily is one of 4 recorded spellings. Emily is the more common one — 5,451 births in 2025 against 12 for Emmily.
- How popular is the name Emmily in 2025?
- Emmily ranks #8362 among US girl names in 2025, with 12 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Emmily?
- About 1 in every 133,939 US girls born in 2025 was named Emmily — 12 in all.
- Will my child share the name Emmily with classmates?
- Emmily will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Emmily
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lona#8362 · Peggy#8362 · Leda#8362 · Margarette#8362 · Rella#8362 · Evalena#8362 · Vashti#8362 · Nona#8362
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Emmily? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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