Esmerelda
Esmerelda was given to 26 girls in 2025, #5,016 among girls’ names; 776 Americans have been recorded with it since 1971 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Esmerelda by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
What does Esmerelda mean?
Wiktionary, English section
Esmerelda is “a female given name from Spanish.”
Variant of Esmeralda.
Meaning: Wiktionary, English section, as of Sep 25, 2026 (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
How popular is Esmerelda?
#5,016 among girls’ names, 2025
Esmerelda rose from #5,714 in 2015 to #5,016 in 2025 among girls’ names; its share of girls born rose from 12.9 to 16.2 per million.
39 babies in 2021, the peak
Esmerelda peaked in 2021, when 39 girls were given it, #3,823 among girls’ names. The 26 births of 2025 are 67% of that peak.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 26 | #5,016 | 16.2 |
| 2024 | 34 | #4,233 | 21.0 |
| 2023 | 26 | #5,034 | 16.2 |
| 2022 | 27 | #4,943 | 16.5 |
| 2021 | 39 | #3,823 | 23.8 |
| 2020 | 21 | #5,714 | 13.0 |
| 2019 | 20 | #6,039 | 11.9 |
| 2018 | 20 | #6,091 | 11.8 |
| 2017 | 25 | #5,225 | 14.5 |
| 2016 | 25 | #5,335 | 14.1 |
Every recorded year (54)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 23 | #5,714 | 12.9 |
| 2014 | 21 | #6,056 | 11.8 |
| 2013 | 15 | #7,879 | 8.5 |
| 2012 | 13 | #8,791 | 7.4 |
| 2011 | 15 | #7,915 | 8.5 |
| 2010 | 6 | #15,569 | 3.4 |
| 2009 | 13 | #9,053 | 7.1 |
| 2008 | 12 | #9,666 | 6.3 |
| 2007 | 22 | #6,169 | 11.4 |
| 2006 | 19 | #6,671 | 10.0 |
| 2005 | 17 | #6,926 | 9.2 |
| 2004 | 22 | #5,623 | 12.0 |
| 2003 | 12 | #8,676 | 6.6 |
| 2002 | 13 | #7,970 | 7.2 |
| 2001 | 19 | #5,887 | 10.6 |
| 2000 | 15 | #6,905 | 8.3 |
| 1999 | 11 | #8,401 | 6.2 |
| 1998 | 22 | #4,837 | 12.5 |
| 1997 | 13 | #6,976 | 7.5 |
| 1996 | 15 | #6,153 | 8.6 |
| 1995 | 10 | #8,275 | 5.7 |
| 1994 | 7 | #10,919 | 3.9 |
| 1993 | 5 | #14,177 | 2.8 |
| 1992 | 8 | #9,759 | 4.3 |
| 1991 | 9 | #8,807 | 4.8 |
| 1990 | 18 | #5,115 | 9.5 |
| 1989 | 5 | #13,001 | 2.7 |
| 1988 | 6 | #10,765 | 3.4 |
| 1987 | 6 | #10,247 | 3.5 |
| 1986 | 7 | #8,816 | 4.1 |
| 1985 | 6 | #9,669 | 3.5 |
| 1984 | 5 | #10,907 | 3.0 |
| 1982 | 9 | #7,047 | 5.3 |
| 1981 | 10 | #6,463 | 6.0 |
| 1980 | 11 | #6,033 | 6.6 |
| 1979 | 13 | #5,182 | 8.1 |
| 1978 | 5 | #10,231 | 3.3 |
| 1977 | 5 | #10,085 | 3.3 |
| 1976 | 6 | #8,457 | 4.1 |
| 1975 | 6 | #8,301 | 4.1 |
| 1974 | 11 | #5,106 | 7.5 |
| 1973 | 11 | #4,976 | 7.5 |
| 1972 | 10 | #5,205 | 6.6 |
| 1971 | 6 | #7,662 | 3.6 |
Ranks and shares: girls’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all girls SSA recorded that year.
Is Esmerelda a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Esmerelda has been recorded only for girls: SSA lists no boys with the name in 54 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Esmerelda: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Esmerelda, and how old are they?
An estimated 763 Americans named Esmerelda and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (98% of everyone recorded); the median is 19 years old and half are between 7 and 30. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 1,708 people named Esmerelda (1,704 women and girls, 4 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 599 born in the U.S. The Census count is 2.9 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 2 names spelled alike, given to 52,527 babies since 1880, Esmerelda is the second most given (1.5% of them). In 2025 it was given to 26 of their 849 babies (3.1%), again the second most given.
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 Esmerelda
Names whose births rose and fell across the same decades, measured on each decade’s share of births.
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 Esmerelda and names like it
- Compare Esmerelda and EsmeraldaBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 2020sEsmerelda peaked in 2021.
- Texas’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Esmerelda since 1910.
- Spanish namesWiktionary’s origin for Esmerelda: every such name, by how often it is given.
- The top names of 2021The year the most babies were named Esmerelda.
- The names of Generation AlphaMost people named Esmerelda alive today were born 2013-2025.
- Names starting with EMost given first.