Ellery
Derived from an Old English surname meaning "alder tree village".
Name Census estimates that about 5,975 living Americans carry the first name Ellery. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 66.9% of registrations being female. The average person named Ellery today is around 23 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Ellery births was 2014 (270 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Ellery. 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 Ellery with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Ellery started out as a boys' name but over the decades crossed over and is now given to girls far more often.
People living today
6.0K
~ 1 in 57,365 Americans
Peak year
2014
270 babies that year
Average age
23
years old
2024 SSA rank
#1,329
Tracked since 1882
Census
Ellery in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 4,931 people with the first name Ellery, which placed it at #3,955 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
#3,955
National first-name rank
People counted
4.9K
4,931 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
1.6
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
77.1% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Ellery
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Ellery is White at 77.1%. The next largest groups are Black (8.2%) and Hispanic (6.1%). 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 Ellery 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 Ellery at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White77.1% · 3,801
- Black or African American8.2% · 406
- Hispanic or Latino6.1% · 300
- Two or more races4.7% · 234
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.9% · 143
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.0% · 47
Gender
Gender distribution for Ellery
Ellery is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 6,808 total registrations, 2,252 (33.1%) were male and 4,556 (66.9%) were female.
Ellery as a male name
- Ranked #5,492 in 2024
- 17 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1959 (65 births)
Ellery as a female name
- Ranked #1,329 in 2024
- 172 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2014 (256 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Ellery on both sides of the split. Of the 4,933 people counted with this name, 1,354 were male (27.4%) and 3,579 were female (72.6%).
Popularity
Ellery: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Ellery from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 2,189 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Ellery remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Ellery 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 Ellery during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Ellerys live
The SSA's state-level files cover 32 states and territories. California, Michigan, Texas recorded the most babies named Ellery, while Maine, Kansas, Maryland recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 89 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Ellery
The name Ellery has its origins in the Old English language, stemming from the word "aelfric," which means "elf ruler" or "elf power." This name gained prominence during the Anglo-Saxon period, particularly between the 5th and 11th centuries AD, when it was commonly used among the English nobility and aristocracy.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Ellery can be found in the Domesday Book, a comprehensive survey of landholdings commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1086. The book mentions an individual named "Aelfric" as a landowner in the county of Norfolk.
In the 12th century, the name underwent a slight variation and was spelled as "Elfric" or "Elfricus." This form of the name appears in various medieval manuscripts and chronicles, including the writings of the renowned English historian William of Malmesbury.
The name Ellery gained further recognition in the 16th century, when it was used by notable figures such as Ellery Walker (1509-1592), an English clergyman and author who wrote several religious treatises.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Ellery. One of the most prominent was Ellery Channing (1780-1842), an American writer, poet, and philosopher who played a significant role in the Transcendentalist movement. He was known for his influential works, including "Self-Culture" and "The Poet's Calling."
Another notable figure was Ellery Queen (1905-1982), the pen name of American writers Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee, who were renowned for their popular mystery novels featuring the fictional detective Ellery Queen.
In the field of sports, Ellery Clark (1923-2000) was an American basketball player who played for the Boston Celtics in the 1940s and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1976.
Ellery Hanley (born 1961) is a former English rugby league footballer and coach who played for several clubs, including Hull FC and Wigan Warriors, and was inducted into the Rugby Football League Hall of Fame in 2005.
The name Ellery has also been used by prominent artists, such as Ellery Walker (1942-2011), an American painter and printmaker known for her vibrant and expressive abstract works.
People
Ellery + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Ellery 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
Ellery: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Ellery?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 5,975 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Ellery 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 57,365 US residents.
Is Ellery a common name?
We classify Ellery as "Rare". It ranks above 96.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 6,808 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Ellery most popular?
The single biggest year for Ellery was 2014, when 270 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Ellery is about 23 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Ellery in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 4,931 people with the name Ellery, or 1.63 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #3,955 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 Ellery 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 Ellery?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Ellery on both sides of the split. Of the 4,933 people counted with this name, 1,354 were male (27.4%) and 3,579 were female (72.6%). 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 Ellery?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Ellery is White at 77.1%. The next largest groups are Black (8.2%) and Hispanic (6.1%). 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 Ellery most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Ellery in the 2020 Census, accounting for 77.1% (3,801 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 Ellery in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Ellery a female name?
Yes, 66.9% of people registered as Ellery 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 Ellery still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Ellery 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 Ellery 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 many people have Ellery as a first name?
If you just want to know how many people have the name Ellery, HowManyOfMe.org gives you the headline number in one glance.