Esma
Esma was given to 24 girls in 2025, #5,292 among girls’ names; 915 Americans have been recorded with it since 1890 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Esma by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
What does Esma mean?
Wiktionary, Turkish section
Esma is “a female given name” Its etymology gives the senses “names” (أَسْمَاء) and “name” (اِسْم).
Inherited from Ottoman Turkish اسما, from Arabic أَسْمَاء (ʔasmāʔ, “names”), plural of اِسْم (ism, “name”), in reference to the 99 names of God in Islam.
/esˈmaː/
Meaning: Wiktionary, Turkish section, as of Sep 25, 2026 (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
How popular is Esma?
#5,292 among girls’ names, 2025
Esma fell from #4,432 in 2015 to #5,292 in 2025 among girls’ names; its share of girls born fell from 17.9 to 14.9 per million.
39 babies in 2019, the peak
Esma peaked in 2019, when 39 girls were given it, #3,811 among girls’ names. The 24 births of 2025 are 62% of that peak.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 24 | #5,292 | 14.9 |
| 2024 | 37 | #3,988 | 22.8 |
| 2023 | 31 | #4,488 | 19.3 |
| 2022 | 34 | #4,231 | 20.7 |
| 2021 | 24 | #5,277 | 14.6 |
| 2020 | 25 | #5,063 | 15.5 |
| 2019 | 39 | #3,811 | 23.2 |
| 2018 | 22 | #5,657 | 12.9 |
| 2017 | 17 | #6,893 | 9.8 |
| 2016 | 35 | #4,189 | 19.8 |
Every recorded year (67)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 32 | #4,432 | 17.9 |
| 2014 | 28 | #4,937 | 15.7 |
| 2013 | 19 | #6,548 | 10.8 |
| 2012 | 16 | #7,563 | 9.1 |
| 2011 | 14 | #8,327 | 8.0 |
| 2010 | 15 | #8,021 | 8.4 |
| 2009 | 12 | #9,573 | 6.5 |
| 2008 | 8 | #12,971 | 4.2 |
| 2007 | 12 | #9,734 | 6.2 |
| 2006 | 13 | #8,878 | 6.8 |
| 2005 | 10 | #10,371 | 5.4 |
| 2004 | 17 | #6,878 | 9.3 |
| 2002 | 7 | #12,635 | 3.9 |
| 2001 | 5 | #16,120 | 2.8 |
| 2000 | 9 | #10,149 | 5.0 |
| 1999 | 6 | #13,201 | 3.4 |
| 1995 | 6 | #12,251 | 3.4 |
| 1993 | 6 | #12,264 | 3.3 |
| 1973 | 6 | #7,710 | 4.1 |
| 1941 | 7 | #3,678 | 5.8 |
| 1939 | 7 | #3,548 | 6.4 |
| 1935 | 7 | #3,513 | 6.7 |
| 1934 | 7 | #3,571 | 6.7 |
| 1933 | 5 | #4,419 | 5.0 |
| 1930 | 7 | #3,778 | 6.2 |
| 1929 | 8 | #3,484 | 7.2 |
| 1928 | 11 | #2,832 | 9.5 |
| 1927 | 7 | #3,993 | 5.9 |
| 1926 | 8 | #3,676 | 6.7 |
| 1925 | 20 | #1,958 | 16.4 |
| 1924 | 14 | #2,571 | 11.2 |
| 1923 | 14 | #2,510 | 11.6 |
| 1922 | 18 | #2,139 | 15.0 |
| 1921 | 14 | #2,546 | 11.4 |
| 1920 | 17 | #2,201 | 14.2 |
| 1919 | 14 | #2,418 | 12.4 |
| 1918 | 12 | #2,723 | 10.4 |
| 1917 | 18 | #1,944 | 16.6 |
| 1916 | 19 | #1,825 | 18.2 |
| 1915 | 8 | #3,224 | 8.1 |
| 1914 | 13 | #1,942 | 17.1 |
| 1913 | 12 | #1,805 | 19.2 |
| 1912 | 12 | #1,646 | 21.5 |
| 1911 | 5 | #2,593 | 12.0 |
| 1910 | 9 | #1,674 | 22.7 |
| 1909 | 7 | #1,830 | 20.2 |
| 1908 | 10 | #1,381 | 29.9 |
| 1906 | 8 | #1,463 | 27.1 |
| 1905 | 6 | #1,771 | 20.6 |
| 1902 | 11 | #1,088 | 41.7 |
| 1901 | 8 | #1,256 | 33.4 |
| 1900 | 9 | #1,351 | 30.0 |
| 1899 | 7 | #1,310 | 30.0 |
| 1898 | 8 | #1,295 | 30.9 |
| 1896 | 6 | #1,472 | 25.2 |
| 1892 | 5 | #1,528 | 23.5 |
| 1890 | 8 | #1,030 | 42.0 |
Ranks and shares: girls’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all girls SSA recorded that year.
Is Esma a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Esma has been recorded only for girls: SSA lists no boys with the name in 67 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Esma: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Esma, and how old are they?
An estimated 537 Americans named Esma and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (59% of everyone recorded); the median is 10 years old and half are between 5 and 16. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 928 people named Esma (913 women and girls, 15 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 388 born in the U.S. The Census count is 2.4 times that prediction. Possible reasons: the Census counts people born abroad, whom SSA’s files leave out, and it records the name people give, which SSA may have recorded under another spelling or as part of a compound name.
Living estimate: SSA births carried forward with the survival rates in SSA’s cohort life tables (2024 Trustees Report) for each birth year and sex. How the estimate is made. Count: Census Bureau, first names in the 2020 Census (released April 14, 2026; names reported 100 or more times, with the Bureau’s disclosure-avoidance adjustment).
Names spelled alike
Of these 7 names spelled alike, given to 14,820 babies since 1880, Esma is the third most given (6.2% of them). In 2025 it was given to 24 of their 1,303 babies (1.8%), the fifth most given that year.
Spelled alike: names in the SSA national file with the same pattern of letters and sounds and at most two letters apart, and Wiktionary’s listed forms; births since 1880 and in 2025, and each name’s peak year, from the SSA national file, published May 8, 2026. Some are separate names, not spellings of one.
Names that rose and fell in the same decades as Esma
Names whose births rose and fell across the same decades, measured on each decade’s share of births.
| Name | Recorded | 1890-2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Ilah | 1,788 |
Similar histories: each decade’s share of births, from the SSA national file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
More about Esma and names like it
- Compare Esma and EsmeBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 2010sEsma peaked in 2019.
- New York’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Esma since 1910.
- Turkish namesWiktionary’s origin for Esma: every such name, by how often it is given.
- The top names of 2019The year the most babies were named Esma.
- The names of Generation AlphaMost people named Esma alive today were born 2013-2025.
- Names starting with EMost given first.