Emily

Popularity

Emily has been a popular name in the English-speaking world, ranking among the most popular names in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. For more than a decade, from 1996 to 2007, it was the most common name given to girls in the United States. It has declined in usage in some countries but has remained a well-used name all over the world. In 2022, it was the 31st most popular name given to girls in Canada.

In the English-speaking world, the name Emily first became popular thanks to German-born Princess Amelia of Great Britain, who was called Emily in English.

The popularity of the name in the 1990s and early years of the 21st century has given the name an everywoman image for women in their twenties. As a result, the name has recently been used for a number of characters in film and television productions such as Emily the Criminal and Emily in Paris.

Name variants

Alternate forms include:

Aemilia (Latin)

Aemiliana (Latin)

Aemilianus (Latin)

Aemilius (Latin)

Aimil (Scottish Gaelic)

Aimilios (Greek)

Aimilia (Greek)

Ái My (Vietnamese)

Amilia (English)

Eemeli (Finnish)

Eemi (Finnish)

Eemil (Finnish)

Eimíle (Irish)

Emalee (English)

Emelie (Swedish)

Emiel (Dutch)

Emily (English)

Emil (Bulgarian), (Croatian), (Czech), (Danish), (English), (German), (Hungarian), (Icelandic), (Indonesian), (Macedonian), (Norwegian), (Polish), (Romanian), (Russian), (Serbian), (Slovak), (Slovene), (Swedish)

Émile (French)

Emilee (English)

Emili (Catalan)

Emili (Hebrew), (Hungarian)

Emília (Hungarian), (Portuguese), (Slovak)

Emilía (Icelandic)

People with the name

Academics

Emily Ying Yang Chan (born 1974), Hong Kong SAR academic

Emily Greenwood, American classicist

Emily Hendree Stewart Park (1848–1910), president, Washington Seminary (Atlanta)

Emily Wick (1921–2013), American chemist at MIT

Actresses

Emily Barclay (born 1984), New Zealand actress

Emily Beecham (born 1984), English actress

Emily Blunt (born 1983), English actress

Emily Booth (born 1976), English actress and TV presenter

Emily Browning (born 1988), Australian actress

Emily Burnett (born 1996), Welsh actress

Emily Coutts (born 1989), Canadian actress

Emily Deschanel (born 1976), American actress

Emily Flain (born 2003), Northern Irish actress

Emily Gimmel (born 1984), American journalist and TV personality

Emily Hampshire (born 1981), Canadian actress

Emily Joyce (born 1969), British actress

Emily Kagan (born 1981), American mixed martial artist

Emily Kinney (born 1985), American actress, singer, and songwriter

Emily Lloyd (born 1970), British actress

Emily Lloyd-Saini, British actress, broadcaster, writer and comedian

Emily Mortimer (born 1971), English actress

Emily Osment (born 1992), American actress and singer

Musicians

Emily Armstrong (born 1986), American singer

Emily Bauer (born 1981), American singer

Emily Haines (born 1974), Canadian indie rock singer-songwriter

Emily Magee (born 1968), American soprano

Emily Nokes, American writer, artist, music critic and musician

Emily Remler (1957–1990), American jazz guitarist

Emily Robison (born 1972), American songwriter

Emily Saliers (born 1963), American singer-songwriter

Emily Smith (singer) (born 1981), Scottish folk singer

Emily Wong (born 1990), Chinese singer and actress

Sportswomen

Emily Allen (born 1992), Welsh footballer

Emily Asquith (born 2003), English boxer

Emily Bessoir (born 2001), German basketball player

Emily Clark (born 1995), Canadian ice hockey player

Emily Cross (born 1986), American foil fencer

Emily Csikos (born 1988), Canadian water polo player

Emily van Egmond (born 1993), Australian footballer

Emily Gielnik (born 1992), Australian footballer

Emily Gillam (born 1977), New Zealand field hockey player

Emily Hallifax (born 2005), French diver

Emily Harrop (born 1997), French ski mountaineer

Emily Hughes (born 1989), American figure skater

Emily Jacobson (born 1985), American saber fencer

Emily Jing (born 2007), American foil fencer

Emily Kukors (born 1985), American swimmer

Emily LeSueur (born 1972), American synchronized swimmer

Emily Lock (born 2007), British gymnast

Emily Oberst (born 1998), American wheelchair basketball player

Writers

Emily Barton (born 1969), American novelist

Emily Bazelon (born 1971), American journalist

Emily Lucas Blackall (1832–1892), American writer, philanthropist

Emily St. John Bouton (1837–1927), American educator, journalist, author, editor

Emily Brontë (1818–1848), English novelist, author of Wuthering Heights

Emily Carr (1871–1945), Canadian artist and writer

Emily Thornton Charles (1845–1895), American poet, journalist, suffragist, newspaper founder

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886), American poet

Emily Steele Elliott (1836–1897), English religious writer

Emily Gerard (1849–1905), Scottish author

Emily Goodrich Smith (1830–1903), American newspaper correspondent

Emily Gravett (born 1972), British children's author and illustrator

Emily Grosholz (1950–2026), American poet and philosopher

Emily Jashinsky, American journalist

Emily Lowe (died 1882), British travel writer

Emily Arnold McCully (born 1939), American children's author

Emily Julian McManus (1865–1918), Canadian poet, author, and educator

Others

Emily Ayckbowm (1836–1900), English founder of the Community of the Sisters of the Church

Emily Bisharat (died 2004), Jordanian suffragette, philanthropist, and the first female lawyer in the Kingdom of Jordan

Emily Blackwell (1826–1910), American academic

Emily Blathwayt (1852–1940), British suffragette, mother of Mary Blathwayt

Emily Rose Bleby (1849–1917), Jamaican-born British temperance reformer

Emily Brooke (born 1985), British inventor

Emmelia of Caesarea or Saint Emily (died 375), mother of Basil the Great

Emily Callaway (fl.2022), American politician

Emily Carmichael (born 1981), American film director, screenwriter, and animator

Emily Parmely Collins (1814–1909), American suffragist, activist, writer

Emily M. J. Cooley (1831–1917), American religious and temperance leader

Emily Davison (1872–1913), British suffragette

Emily Dievendorf, American politician

Emily Donelson (1807–1836), daughter-in-law of and First Lady under Andrew Jackson

Emily Greene Balch (1867–1961), American academic, pacifist and Nobel Laureate

Fictional characters

Emily, Jessie's former toy owner in Toy Story

Emily Arrow, main female character in Patricia Reilly Giff’s Polk Street School series

Emily, a character in Thomas & Friends

Emily Barham, the female lead in the 1964 film The Americanization of Emily, played by Julie Andrews

Emily Bartlett, heroine of Beverly Cleary's Emily's Runaway Imagination

Emily Bennett, in the CW fantasy-drama TV series The Vampire Diaries

Emily Bennett, American Girl character, best friend of Molly McIntire

Emily Bishop, in the British soap opera Coronation Street

Emily Bradford Taylor, Gwyneth Paltrow's character in A Perfect Murder

Emily Bung, in Carry On Screaming

Emily Byrne, main character of the Absentia TV series

Emily Charlton, a character in both the novel and the film in The Devil Wears Prada

Emily Chester, title character of the 1864 American novel by Anne Moncure Crane

Emily Cooper, main title character in the Netflix series Emily in Paris

Emily Davis, one of eight protagonists in the survival horror game Until Dawn