Eliyah
A Hebrew name meaning "my God is Yahweh" or "Jehovah is God".
Name Census estimates that about 2,106 living Americans carry the first name Eliyah. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 65.3% of registrations being female. The average person named Eliyah today is around 13 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Eliyah births was 2024 (119 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Eliyah. 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 Eliyah with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Eliyah is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 13 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
2.1K
~ 1 in 162,751 Americans
Peak year
2024
119 babies that year
Average age
13
years old
2024 SSA rank
#2,113
Tracked since 1991
Census
Eliyah in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,263 people with the first name Eliyah, which placed it at #10,515 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
#10,515
National first-name rank
People counted
1.3K
1,263 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
37.5% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Eliyah
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Eliyah is Black at 37.5%. The next largest groups are White (24.5%) and Hispanic (22.4%). 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 Eliyah 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 Eliyah at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American37.5% · 473
- White24.5% · 309
- Hispanic or Latino22.4% · 283
- Two or more races8.6% · 109
- Asian and Pacific Islander5.2% · 66
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.8% · 23
Gender
Gender distribution for Eliyah
Eliyah is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 2,127 total registrations, 739 (34.7%) were male and 1,388 (65.3%) were female.
Eliyah as a male name
- Ranked #3,816 in 2024
- 29 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2019 (43 births)
Eliyah as a female name
- Ranked #2,113 in 2024
- 90 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2024 (90 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Eliyah on both sides of the split. Of the 1,271 people counted with this name, 454 were male (35.7%) and 817 were female (64.3%).
Popularity
Eliyah: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Eliyah from the 1990s through to the 2020s, spanning 4 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 936 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Eliyah remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Eliyah 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 Eliyah during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Eliyahs live
The SSA's state-level files cover 12 states and territories. California, Texas, Florida recorded the most babies named Eliyah, while Pennsylvania, Georgia, Colorado recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 45 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Eliyah
The name Eliyah is a Hebrew variant of the biblical name Elijah, which means "my God is Yahweh" or "Yahweh is God." This name has its roots in the ancient Hebrew language and can be traced back to the Old Testament, where it was borne by the famous prophet Elijah.
Elijah was a prominent figure in the Hebrew Bible, renowned for his miracles and his unwavering devotion to God. The biblical account of Elijah's life is found in the books of 1 Kings and 2 Kings, where he plays a pivotal role in confronting the pagan worship of Baal and calling the Israelites back to the worship of the one true God.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Eliyah can be found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of ancient Jewish manuscripts dating back to the third century BCE. The name was also mentioned in the works of Jewish historian Josephus, who lived in the first century CE, indicating its widespread use among the Jewish community during that time.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Eliyah or its variations. One of the most famous was Elijah ben Solomon, also known as the Vilna Gaon (1720-1797), a revered Lithuanian rabbi and scholar who made significant contributions to the study of Jewish law and Kabbalah.
Another notable figure was Elijah Muhammad (1897-1975), a prominent African-American religious leader and the founder of the Nation of Islam. He played a crucial role in the black nationalist movement and was a mentor to Malcolm X.
In the world of literature, Elijah was the name of the protagonist in the novel "Elijah Visible" by Jamaican author Erna Brodber (1940-2017). The novel explores themes of identity, spirituality, and the African diaspora experience.
Elijah Millsap (born 1987) is an American professional basketball player who has played in the NBA and various international leagues. Elijah Wood (born 1981) is an American actor best known for his role as Frodo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy.
Elijah Anderson (born 1943) is an American sociologist and author, renowned for his work on urban ethnography and studies of race and ethnicity in modern American society.
People
Eliyah + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Eliyah 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
Eliyah: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Eliyah?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 2,106 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Eliyah 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 162,751 US residents.
Is Eliyah a common name?
We classify Eliyah as "Rare". It ranks above 93.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 2,127 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Eliyah most popular?
The single biggest year for Eliyah was 2024, when 119 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Eliyah is about 13 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Eliyah in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,263 people with the name Eliyah, or 0.42 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #10,515 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 Eliyah 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 Eliyah?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Eliyah on both sides of the split. Of the 1,271 people counted with this name, 454 were male (35.7%) and 817 were female (64.3%). 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 Eliyah?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Eliyah is Black at 37.5%. The next largest groups are White (24.5%) and Hispanic (22.4%). 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 Eliyah most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Eliyah in the 2020 Census, accounting for 37.5% (473 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 Eliyah in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Eliyah a female name?
Yes, 65.3% of people registered as Eliyah in the SSA data are female. 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 Eliyah still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Eliyah 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 Eliyah 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 Eliyah?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.