Elijah: Meaning of Baby Name Elijah

About the Name Elijah

Elijah is the English form of the Hebrew Eliyahu, composed of El (God) and a verbal form of Yahweh, together meaning "my God is Yahweh" — a theological assertion as much as a name. The biblical Elijah is one of the most consequential figures in the Hebrew Bible: a 9th-century BCE prophet of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, recorded in 1 and 2 Kings as the rival of the prophets of Baal, the mentor of Elisha, and the only major prophet whose narrative ends not in death but in ascent to heaven in a fiery chariot.

The name's later cultural footprint extends well beyond Judaism. In Christian tradition, Elijah appears alongside Moses at the Transfiguration, and Christian eschatology positions him as a forerunner of the Messiah. In Islam, Ilyas (the Arabic form) is recognized as a prophet. In Jewish Passover tradition, every Seder includes a poured cup of wine for Elijah, in case he should arrive that night to herald redemption.

Despite this enormous traditional weight, Elijah was rare in the United States until the late 1990s, when it began a steady climb that placed it in the modern US top 10 by the late 2010s — part of the broader return to long-form Old Testament names alongside Noah, Ezra, and Isaiah. Modern bearers include actor Elijah Wood (Frodo in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings) and Elijah McCoy, the 19th-century Black Canadian-American inventor whose precision lubricators gave rise to the phrase "the real McCoy." Common nicknames are Eli (now widely used as an independent name), Lijah, and the more formal Elias; international forms include Eliyahu (Hebrew), Ilyas (Arabic), Élie (French), and Elia (Italian).

By Marvin Tang. Popularity figures use an imported selection of SSA records; SSA does not supply name meanings or etymologies. Editorial references, where available, are listed with the name explanation. Sources and coverage.

Quick Facts About Elijah

1,528

Hebrew baby names in our dictionary

695

Hebrew male names

215

6-letter E-names in our dictionary

459

E-male names total

1995–2025

years with imported records (31 observed; gaps possible)

345,561

recorded uses of Elijah across imported years and sex lists

US Popularity History (1995–2025)

➖ Steady: Elijah slipped 3 places in the US boys ranking between the two observed years (#4 in 2020 → #7 in 2025).

Annual imported US counts for Elijah by recorded sex, from US Social Security Administration records. Highest count in the imported records: 2011 with 13,997 boys named Elijah (boy rank #13 that year).

Latest imported observation: in 2025, ranked #7 for boys (11,111 imported records). That's 6 places above its earlier 2011 peak — the latest stored rank is higher than its rank at the highest observed count; rank and count measure different things.

Source: US Social Security Administration. Coverage: imported US Social Security card-application records, not a complete birth census. Historical coverage is narrower, including top-100 selection before 2000; recent imports also use catalog and rank filters. Missing rows can reflect those filters or source privacy limits and must not be read as zero or fewer than five uses. Spellings and recorded sex are kept separate.

Look up Elijah across states

Compare this exact spelling in one year and recorded sex list. Missing state records remain unknown.

Elijah state records (girls) Elijah state records (boys)

Observed State Ranks for Elijah

Average boy-name rank across the same 2016–2025 window, limited to 51 jurisdictions with every year imported. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings. This is an ordinal comparison, not a per-capita rate. States with missing years are excluded. For Elijah the lowest observed averages are in Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico.

Lowest observed average rank

#	State	Avg rank	Imported count
1	Arkansas	#3	1,485
2	Louisiana	#3	2,328
3	New Mexico	#4	898
4	Oklahoma	#4	1,742
5	Florida	#4	9,188
6	Kentucky	#4	2,305
7	Georgia	#4	4,954
8	Mississippi	#4	1,448
9	Indiana	#5	3,058
10	Tennessee	#5	3,667

Highest observed average rank

#	State	Avg rank	Imported count
1	New Jersey	#40	2,022
2	Massachusetts	#34	1,711
3	Vermont	#33	130
4	Utah	#33	1,033
5	New York	#32	4,702
6	Montana	#31	254
7	Connecticut	#30	954
8	District of Columbia	#28	285
9	Maine	#28	322
10	New Hampshire	#26	374

Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. Only states with all 10 annual observations for this spelling and recorded sex are compared. Missing states are excluded, not assigned zero. Average rank measures position in state rankings, not a per-capita rate. Local import filters and SSA privacy limits can both create gaps. Coverage and limitations.

Related Forms in This Catalog

Open each form for its own meaning, language history, and exact-spelling usage records.

Name
Eli
Elias
Eliot
Elliot

Famous People Named Elijah

1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Elijah.

Elijah Wood — Movie Actor (1981)

Browse more famous Elijahs and similar first names →

Looking for names like Elijah?

A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.

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Compare Elijah to Other Popular Names

Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Elijah against names with the largest imported counts for boys-name peers (top 8 with every year imported, 2016–2025). Names with missing annual observations are excluded from this comparison.

Elijah vs Liam 202,429 imported counts, 2016–2025

Elijah vs Noah 191,165 imported counts, 2016–2025

Elijah vs Oliver 142,959 imported counts, 2016–2025

Elijah vs James 128,527 imported counts, 2016–2025

Elijah vs William 127,126 imported counts, 2016–2025

Elijah vs Benjamin 119,890 imported counts, 2016–2025

Elijah vs Lucas 116,799 imported counts, 2016–2025

Elijah vs Henry 110,328 imported counts, 2016–2025

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