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Elizabeth: girls named per year, 1880 to 2025

How many American girls were named Elizabeth each year, from Social Security card applications. · updated Jul 2026

About this statistic

Elizabeth: girls named per year stood at 6,760 in 2025, down 2.4% on the previous period.

6,760 American girls were named Elizabeth in 2025. The name's recorded peak is 20,750 in 1990; the series runs from 1880.

How it is measured

The counts come from Social Security card applications, tabulated by the SSA by year of birth, name, and sex. It is administrative data, not a survey: every point is actual registrations. Two caveats shape the edges: names with fewer than five occurrences in a year are withheld for privacy, and the earliest decades undercount births because Social Security began in 1935 and older people applied late or never.

What the curve shows

Name data is one of the cleanest cultural time series in existence, and the curves behave like fashion: a rise usually has a traceable trigger, a famous namesake or a character, and the decay is slow because names linger in families after they leave the zeitgeist. Elizabeth is past its peak, running at roughly 33 percent of its 1990 high.

Frequently asked questions
Does this count everyone with the name?
It counts births registered with Social Security in each year, so it is the flow of new babies, not the number of living people with the name. Totals across years approximate the latter, minus mortality.
Why do old names look rarer than they were?
Social Security began in 1935, so people born earlier appear only if they later applied for a card. The earliest decades undercount, especially for people who died young.
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Elizabeth: girls named per year — Kitegraph