Elmo — boys' name

What the Data Says About Elmo

The Social Security Administration has registered 10,091 babies named Elmo between 1880 and 2023, spanning 144 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a boy's name, Elmo currently falls outside the top 1,000 boys' names for 2023. The name reached its historical peak in 1920, when 397 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Elmo performed strongest in the 1920s, accumulating 2,891 births during that ten-year window. Across the 15 decades of recorded activity, Elmo shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in Texas, which accounts for 1,169 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by Louisiana and Kentucky. In total, SSA state-level files list Elmo in 35 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Elmo in our reference dataset. These figures derive from SSA's annual national and state-level name files, which include any name appearing at least five times in a given year or state-year; names below that threshold are suppressed for privacy and therefore excluded from the totals shown here. The 10,091 total represents a lower bound — actual usage may be higher in years or states where the count fell below the disclosure floor. This page is provided for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute personal, legal, or naming advice.