Emory
Derived from Old French "amourie", meaning "beloved" or "darling".
Name Census estimates that about 20,049 living Americans carry the first name Emory. It sits at #330 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 65.4% of registrations being male. The average person named Emory today is around 25 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Emory births was 2024 (1,211 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Emory. 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 Emory with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Emory started out as a boys' name but over the decades crossed over and is now given to girls far more often.
People living today
20K
~ 1 in 17,096 Americans
Peak year
2024
1,211 babies that year
Average age
25
years old
2024 SSA rank
#330
Tracked since 1880
Census
Emory in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 14,171 people with the first name Emory, which placed it at #1,963 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
#1,963
National first-name rank
People counted
14K
14,171 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
4.7
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
68.2% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Emory
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Emory is White at 68.2%. The next largest groups are Black (17.6%) and Hispanic (6.0%). 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 Emory 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 Emory at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White68.2% · 9,661
- Black or African American17.6% · 2,499
- Hispanic or Latino6.0% · 857
- Two or more races5.9% · 843
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.5% · 206
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.7% · 105
Gender
Gender distribution for Emory
Emory is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 28,589 total registrations, 18,700 (65.4%) were male and 9,889 (34.6%) were female.
Emory as a male name
- Ranked #884 in 2024
- 271 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1920 (308 births)
Emory as a female name
- Ranked #330 in 2024
- 940 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2024 (940 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Emory on both sides of the split. Of the 14,171 people counted with this name, 8,317 were male (58.7%) and 5,854 were female (41.3%).
Popularity
Emory: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Emory 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 6,631 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Emory remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Emory 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 Emory during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Emorys live
The SSA's state-level files cover 43 states and territories. Georgia, Texas, Florida recorded the most babies named Emory, while Wyoming, Delaware, Nevada recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 493 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Emory
The name Emory has its origins in the Old French language, derived from the word "aimerie," which means "labor" or "work." It is believed to have emerged in the medieval period, around the 12th or 13th century.
This name gained prominence in England during the Middle Ages, where it was often used as a surname for individuals whose occupation involved manual labor or skilled craftsmanship. Over time, the name transitioned from a occupational surname to a given name.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Emory can be found in the Domesday Book, a historical record commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1086. The book mentions an individual named "Emery" residing in the county of Norfolk.
In the 14th century, a notable figure bearing the name Emory was Sir Emory Vinsauf, an English poet and scholar who authored several works on rhetoric and poetic composition. He lived from approximately 1235 to 1314.
During the Renaissance period, Emory Filmer (c. 1560-1647) was an English political theorist and writer who advocated for the divine right of kings and absolute monarchy. His works, such as "Patriarcha," had a significant influence on political thought during his time.
In the realm of religion, Emory Bogardus (1634-1679) was a Dutch Reformed minister who served as the second minister of the Reformed Dutch Church in New Amsterdam, now known as New York City.
Moving into the modern era, Emory Elliott (1942-2009) was an American literary critic and scholar who made significant contributions to the study of Renaissance literature and literary theory.
It is worth noting that while the name Emory has its roots in Old French and English history, it has also been adopted and used in various other cultures and regions around the world, albeit with varying spellings and pronunciations.
People
Emory + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Emory 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
Emory: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Emory?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 20,049 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Emory 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 17,096 US residents.
Is Emory a common name?
We classify Emory as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 28,589 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Emory most popular?
The single biggest year for Emory was 2024, when 1,211 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Emory is about 25 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Emory in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 14,171 people with the name Emory, or 4.69 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,963 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 Emory 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 Emory?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Emory on both sides of the split. Of the 14,171 people counted with this name, 8,317 were male (58.7%) and 5,854 were female (41.3%). 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 Emory?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Emory is White at 68.2%. The next largest groups are Black (17.6%) and Hispanic (6.0%). 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 Emory most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Emory in the 2020 Census, accounting for 68.2% (9,661 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 Emory in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Emory a male name?
Yes, 65.4% of people registered as Emory 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 Emory still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Emory 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 Emory 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 share the name Emory?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.