9BabyNames Baby names with meanings & US popularity data Italiano

Serena vs Emma

How Serena and Emma compare across 146 years of US Social Security Administration baby-name records — popularity history, peak years, current rank, and which name overtook which.

Open Name Tournament

Serena

Female · Spanish

Meaning: Serene

Emma

Female · German

Meaning: Whole: Complete. Universal

US Popularity History — Side-by-Side

Annual US births named Serena (girls) vs Emma (girls), from US Social Security Administration national records.

Source: US Social Security Administration. Names appearing fewer than 5 times per year are suppressed by SSA.

Quick Stats

Metric Serena Emma
Peak year (most US births) 2000 — 1,504 girls 2003 — 22,719 girls
Peak rank #209 #2
Most recent rank (2025) #325 (942 births) #3 (12,754 births)
Total US births since 1880 23,012 713,779
Last 10 years (2016–2025) 8,063 161,030

Peak comparison takeaway

At its all-time peak, Emma reached 22,719 US births in 2003 — 21,215 more than Serena's peak count.

Strongest States — Last 10 Years

States where each name ranked highest, from SSA's state-level dataset. Lower average rank = name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name list.

Serena — top 5 states

#StateAvg rankBirths
1 Rhode Island #207 16
2 Hawaii #223 17
3 District of Columbia #237 22
4 New Mexico #239 25
5 New Jersey #270 299

Emma — top 5 states

#StateAvg rankBirths
1 Texas #1 17,678
2 New York #2 8,974
3 New Jersey #2 4,400
4 Arizona #2 3,425
5 Pennsylvania #2 5,543

Want a different comparison?

Data & methodology

Source: US Social Security Administration national baby names dataset 1880–2025 (CC0 public domain). Names with fewer than 5 occurrences in a given year are suppressed by SSA. State-level coverage runs 1910–2025. Crossover detection compares annual birth counts (not ranks) for each year both names appear. Methodology: see full notes. More comparisons →