Ellis
Meaning
surname form of Elias, "Yahweh is my God"
Famously borne by Ellis Bell, the name behind which Emily Bronte published Wuthering Heights.
The story
Ellis is the surname form of Elias, Yahweh is my God underneath, and for American ears it carries a second inheritance no etymology planned: the island in New York harbor where twelve million arrivals first gave their names to this country. The record shows an old, real presence, four to six thousand a decade from the 1910s through the 1950s, a long fade to about 1,600 in the 1980s, then the modern return: 3,100 in the 2000s, 9,900 in the 2010s, 9,600 so far this decade. The new turn is who wears it: this decade about 7,000 boys and 2,600 girls, roughly one in four, the same loosening Milan shows one entry up. In our records the all-time split is about 49,700 boys to 7,300 girls. A name that reads as a threshold, the place where a family's American story starts, was always going to come back in an era that prizes exactly that.
Ellis's name family
One shared root links 5 names across 2 languages.
Shared root: from Hebrew Eliyyahu "my God is Yahweh", the fiery prophet; Elias is its Greek dress and Ellis its English surname echo
The constellation
More branches
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Ellis peaked in the 2020s.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
1,080 people · the #7,841 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 200,000 · median age 18
Among people named Ellis living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 2010s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 237 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
The Ellis deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Ellis truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Ellis fits with your family’s names and surname.
Keep exploring
Names like Ellis · Middle names for Ellis · Pen names and the names writers chose
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