Eliot
English masculine name derived from Old French, meaning "the Lord is my God".
Name Census estimates that about 7,379 living Americans carry the first name Eliot. It is a predominantly male name (93.3% of registrations). The average person named Eliot today is around 29 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Eliot births was 2012 (239 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Eliot. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Eliot with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
7.4K
~ 1 in 46,450 Americans
Peak year
2012
239 babies that year
Average age
29
years old
2024 SSA rank
#1,369
Tracked since 1905
Census
Eliot in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 6,978 people with the first name Eliot, which placed it at #3,139 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#3,139
National first-name rank
People counted
7.0K
6,978 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
2.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
71.8% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Eliot
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Eliot is White at 71.8%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (13.9%) and Two or More Races (5.6%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Eliot described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Eliot at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White71.8% · 5,007
- Hispanic or Latino13.9% · 971
- Two or more races5.6% · 390
- Black or African American4.3% · 298
- Asian and Pacific Islander4.1% · 288
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.3% · 24
Gender
Gender distribution for Eliot
Eliot leans heavily male at 93.3% of total registrations, but 554 girls have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Eliot as a male name
- Ranked #1,369 in 2024
- 137 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2012 (216 births)
Eliot as a female name
- Ranked #12,493 in 2024
- 7 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2018 (36 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Eliot leans strongly male. 6,406 people counted with this name were male (91.8%), compared with 570 female bearers (8.2%).
Popularity
Eliot: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Eliot from the 1900s through to the 2020s, spanning 13 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 2,131 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Eliot remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Eliot by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Eliot during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Eliots live
The SSA's state-level files cover 30 states and territories. New York, California, Massachusetts recorded the most babies named Eliot, while South Carolina, Louisiana, Kentucky recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 139 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Eliot
The name Eliot has its origins in the medieval English form of the biblical name Elijah. It is derived from the Hebrew name Eliyahu, which means "my God is Yahweh." The name Elijah is found in the Old Testament, where he was a prominent prophet during the reign of King Ahab in the 9th century BCE.
The earliest recorded use of the name Eliot can be traced back to the 12th century in England. It was initially a surname, with the first known bearer being Eliot of Naburn, who lived in Yorkshire in the late 12th century. Over time, the surname Eliot gradually transitioned into a given name.
One of the earliest and most notable individuals named Eliot was Sir Thomas Elyot, an English scholar and diplomat who lived from 1490 to 1546. He is best known for his work "The Book Named the Governor," which discussed the ideal education and conduct of a Renaissance gentleman.
In the 17th century, the name gained prominence with John Eliot, known as the "Apostle to the Indians." He was a Puritan missionary born in 1604 who dedicated his life to converting Native Americans to Christianity and translating the Bible into their language.
The 19th century saw the rise of several influential individuals with the name Eliot. George Eliot, born Mary Ann Evans in 1819, was a renowned English novelist who wrote classics such as "Middlemarch" and "Silas Marner." Thomas Stearns Eliot, better known as T.S. Eliot, was a celebrated poet and literary critic born in 1888, famous for works like "The Waste Land" and "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
In the 20th century, the name Eliot gained further recognition. T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, was a British military officer and writer born in 1888, renowned for his role in the Arab Revolt during World War I. Eliot Ness, born in 1903, was an American Prohibition agent who led the famous team known as "The Untouchables" in their fight against Al Capone's criminal empire in Chicago.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Eliot
People
Eliot + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Eliot as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with E
Other first names starting with E with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Eliot: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Eliot?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 7,379 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Eliot going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 46,450 US residents.
Is Eliot a common name?
We classify Eliot as "Rare". It ranks above 97.2% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 8,313 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Eliot most popular?
The single biggest year for Eliot was 2012, when 239 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Eliot is about 29 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Eliot in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 6,978 people with the name Eliot, or 2.31 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #3,139 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Eliot in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Eliot?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Eliot leans strongly male. 6,406 people counted with this name were male (91.8%), compared with 570 female bearers (8.2%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Eliot?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Eliot is White at 71.8%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (13.9%) and Two or More Races (5.6%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Eliot most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Eliot in the 2020 Census, accounting for 71.8% (5,007 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Eliot in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Eliot a male name?
Yes, 93.3% of people registered as Eliot in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Eliot still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Eliot in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Eliot can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How common is the name Eliot?
Our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers how many people share the name Eliot at a glance, with the living-bearer count up front.