Ellis
A first name for boys derived from the surname Ellis, which originated as an English form of the Greek name Elias.
Name Census estimates that about 34,757 living Americans carry the first name Ellis. It sits at #273 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 87.6% of registrations being male. The average person named Ellis today is around 31 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Ellis births was 2024 (1,654 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Ellis. 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 Ellis with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
35K
~ 1 in 9,861 Americans
Peak year
2024
1,654 babies that year
Average age
31
years old
2024 SSA rank
#273
Tracked since 1880
Census
Ellis in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 25,905 people with the first name Ellis, which placed it at #1,374 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
#1,374
National first-name rank
People counted
26K
25,905 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
8.6
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
63.4% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Ellis
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Ellis is White at 63.4%. The next largest groups are Black (21.9%) and Hispanic (6.3%). 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 Ellis 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 Ellis at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White63.4% · 16,412
- Black or African American21.9% · 5,685
- Hispanic or Latino6.3% · 1,624
- Two or more races5.4% · 1,396
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.4% · 613
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.7% · 175
Gender
Gender distribution for Ellis
Ellis leans heavily male at 87.6% of total registrations, but 6,913 girls have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Ellis as a male name
- Ranked #273 in 2024
- 1,250 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2024 (1,250 births)
Ellis as a female name
- Ranked #697 in 2024
- 404 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2021 (501 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Ellis leans strongly male. 21,575 people counted with this name were male (83.3%), compared with 4,326 female bearers (16.7%).
Popularity
Ellis: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Ellis 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 9,865 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Ellis remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Ellis 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 Ellis during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Ellis' live
The SSA's state-level files cover 50 states and territories. Texas, California, Georgia recorded the most babies named Ellis, while Wyoming, New Mexico, Hawaii recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 931 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Ellis
The name Ellis is an English given name derived from the Old English surname Ellys, which itself originated from an Old English personal name Ęlle, meaning "foreign." The name likely came into use as a personal name in England during the Middle Ages.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Ellis is found in the Domesday Book, a survey of England commissioned in 1086 by William the Conqueror. The entry includes a landowner named Ellis from Yorkshire.
A notable historical figure with the name Ellis was Ellis de Hauvill, a 12th-century English nobleman who served as Lord Chancellor of England from 1199 to 1201. He played a key role in the negotiations surrounding the Magna Carta.
In the 16th century, Ellis Heywood (c. 1530 - 1578) was an English Protestant martyr who was burned at the stake for his religious beliefs during the Marian persecutions.
During the American Revolutionary War, Ellis Hughes (1730 - 1794) was a Welsh-born American patriot who served as a Deputy Governor of Georgia and fought in the Siege of Savannah.
In the field of literature, Ellis Parker Butler (1869 - 1937) was an American author best known for his short story "Pigs is Pigs," which became a popular humorous tale.
Another notable figure with the name Ellis was Ellis Arnall (1907 - 1992), a politician who served as the 67th Governor of Georgia from 1943 to 1947, and was later appointed as the Director of the Office of Price Stabilization by President Harry S. Truman.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Ellis
People
Ellis + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Ellis 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
Ellis: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Ellis?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 34,757 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Ellis 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 9,861 US residents.
Is Ellis a common name?
We classify Ellis as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 55,901 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Ellis most popular?
The single biggest year for Ellis was 2024, when 1,654 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Ellis is about 31 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Ellis in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 25,905 people with the name Ellis, or 8.58 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,374 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 Ellis 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 Ellis?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Ellis leans strongly male. 21,575 people counted with this name were male (83.3%), compared with 4,326 female bearers (16.7%). 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 Ellis?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Ellis is White at 63.4%. The next largest groups are Black (21.9%) and Hispanic (6.3%). 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 Ellis most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Ellis in the 2020 Census, accounting for 63.4% (16,412 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 Ellis in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Ellis a male name?
Yes, 87.6% of people registered as Ellis 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 Ellis still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Ellis 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 Ellis 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 Ellis as a first name?
For a quick modern take, check how many Americans are named Ellis on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org.