Elma
Elma is outside the top 1,000 in 2024, with 30 births. Its best rank was 209th, in 1901.
- Rank in 2024
- —outside the top 1,000
- Births in 2024
- 300.00% of girls
- Peak year
- 1918659 births
- Best rank
- #209in 1901
- Since 1880
- 22,152people given the name
The story in the numbers
21,669 girls have been named Elma in the United States since 1880, according to Social Security records. The busiest single year was 1918, with 659 births.
The name has all but left use: 30 births in 2024, against 659 at the peak.
Half of everyone given the name was born by 1923, and the 1920s alone account for 23%. It has spent 77 of 145 years in the top 1,000.
It is overwhelmingly a girl’s name: 483 boys have also been given it, 2.2% of the total.
Rank among girls, year by year
By decade
| Decade | girls named Elma | |
|---|---|---|
| 1880s | 643 | |
| 1890s | 1,355 | |
| 1900s | 1,940 | |
| 1910s | 4,802 | |
| 1920s | 4,990 | |
| 1930s | 2,793 | |
| 1940s | 1,810 | |
| 1950s | 1,139 | |
| 1960s | 654 | |
| 1970s | 329 | |
| 1980s | 196 | |
| 1990s | 183 | |
| 2000s | 410 | |
| 2010s | 298 | |
| 2020s | 127 |
In 1918, its biggest year
Elma was the 249th most given girl’s name that year. The top five girls’ names of 1918 were Mary, Helen, Dorothy, Margaret and Ruth. See all of 1918.
Names that rose and fell with Elma
Same sex, most similar popularity curve over 145 years, in five-year steps — the shape of the line, not the size.
- Mablepeak 1922
- Elvapeak 1918
- Eulapeak 1919
- Delphiapeak 1924
- Aldapeak 1918
- Leotapeak 1918
- Ednapeak 1918
- Hortensepeak 1919
What this page does not tell you. The Social Security data records how many babies were given a name, not what the name means or where it comes from — so neither do we. Counts cover people with a Social Security number; names given to fewer than five babies in a year are withheld. More on the data.