Recorded 1880–2023 · United States
Elmo was most popular in 1920, when 409 American babies were given the name — ranking #596 that year. It was not recorded in 2025. Across 1880–2025 the Social Security Administration has recorded 10,338 people named Elmo.
The Social Security Administration’s records begin in 1880, and Elmo is already there in that first year — so the name is older than the record and these figures cannot date it. It has been recorded in 125 of the 146 years since.
The Social Security Administration has recorded 10,338 American births named Elmo between 1880 and 2025. That is recorded US births, not a world population — it counts people issued a Social Security number at birth in the United States. Of those, roughly 1,910 are estimated to be alive today.
Elmo was not recorded in 2025. The SSA withholds any name given to fewer than five babies in a year, so fewer than five American babies were given it.
Elmo is too rare for a direction to mean much. It averaged 6 births a year across 2021–2025 against 5 a year a decade earlier — at these counts a single baby moves the percentage, and any year under five births is withheld at source.
Measured on recorded births. American births overall have fallen since 2007, so most established names lose births over any recent decade — a name can shed births and still hold its rank. Compare the rank above, which is measured against the other names of the same year.
Across the whole record Elmo is a boy’s name — 2.4% of the 10,338 Americans given it were girls and 97.6% were boys. In births since 2016 it is 0% girls and 100% boys.
Counted from every US birth the Social Security Administration recorded under this name, so it reflects use rather than opinion. A name given to fewer than five babies of one sex in a year is withheld at source and is not counted.
Roughly 1,910 Americans named Elmo are alive today — 18% of everyone ever recorded with the name. The median is 71 years old, and half are between 58 and 81.
An estimate, not a count. Recorded births are carried forward through the Social Security Administration’s 2023 period life table, by age and sex. That table describes mortality in one recent year, so it credits the oldest cohorts with today’s survival rather than the harsher rates they actually lived through — the further back a name peaked, the more this will overstate how many remain. It counts people issued a Social Security number at birth, not immigrants who arrived later.
How much more common the name is in each state than across the country as a whole.
See Elmo on the interactive charts
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Source: U.S.A. Social Security Administration. Years 1880–2025. namelegacy.org