Elmer
Elmer is outside the top 1,000 in 2024, with 178 births. Its best rank was 32nd, in 1893.
- Rank in 2024
- —outside the top 1,000
- Births in 2024
- 1780.01% of boys
- Peak year
- 19184,373 births
- Best rank
- #32in 1893
- Since 1880
- 131,169people given the name
The story in the numbers
129,416 boys have been named Elmer in the United States since 1880, according to Social Security records. The busiest single year was 1918, with 4,373 births — 0.43% of all boys recorded that year.
The name has all but left use: 178 births in 2024, against 4,373 at the peak.
Half of everyone given the name was born by 1925, and the 1920s alone account for 27%. It has spent 129 of 145 years in the top 1,000, 53 of them in the top 100.
It is overwhelmingly a boy’s name: 1,753 girls have also been given it, 1.3% of the total.
Rank among boys, year by year
By decade
| Decade | boys named Elmer | |
|---|---|---|
| 1880s | 4,627 | |
| 1890s | 5,647 | |
| 1900s | 6,161 | |
| 1910s | 28,600 | |
| 1920s | 34,919 | |
| 1930s | 17,370 | |
| 1940s | 10,879 | |
| 1950s | 6,881 | |
| 1960s | 3,833 | |
| 1970s | 2,137 | |
| 1980s | 1,567 | |
| 1990s | 2,104 | |
| 2000s | 2,269 | |
| 2010s | 1,638 | |
| 2020s | 784 |
In 1918, its biggest year
Elmer was the 44th most given boy’s name that year. The top five boys’ names of 1918 were John, William, James, Robert and Charles. See all of 1918.
Names that rose and fell with Elmer
Same sex, most similar popularity curve over 145 years, in five-year steps — the shape of the line, not the size.
- Homerpeak 1920
- Earlepeak 1918
- Clarencepeak 1921
- Millardpeak 1922
- Hermanpeak 1921
- Horacepeak 1921
- Evertpeak 1923
- Melvillepeak 1918
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.