Emmitt
- Pronunciation
- [Eh-mit]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Strong And Industrious.
- Origin
- English
About the Name Emmitt
Emmitt is a modern American spelling variant of Emmett (see separate entry on Emmett for the Old Germanic etymology — derived from Emma plus the patronymic ending, yielding "Emma's son," or possibly meaning "strong and industrious"). The double-T -mitt spelling Emmitt is essentially a 20th-21st century American variant.
The various spellings (Emmitt, Emmett, Emmet) are tracked separately by SSA and represent the same underlying name. The Emmitt spelling specifically appeals to parents seeking a more visually distinctive form. The name's overwhelming modern cultural anchor is American football star Emmitt Smith (Emmitt James Smith III, born 1969, the iconic American NFL Hall of Fame running back who is the all-time NFL career rushing leader, anchored in 1990s and 2000s American sports memory).
Other notable bearers include American journalist Emmitt Till (using the alternate Emmett spelling, 1941–1955, the iconic African-American teenager whose 1955 lynching in Mississippi became one of the foundational moments of the American Civil Rights Movement); contemporary American basketball player Emmitt Holt; and the iconic American jazz musician Emmett Hardy. Emmitt has been continuously used in American naming for over a century. The name's American climb is recent: the name climbed from outside the US top 1000 in 2010 to the US top 300 boys' rank by 2018 and the top 300 since. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the surname-style sophistication, the strong Emmitt Smith American football cultural anchor and Emmett Till American Civil Rights historical anchor, and the popular two-syllable -itt ending. Two firm syllables, soft consonants, and tonal versatility from rural-American to upwardly-mobile-American. The name reads as both classical-Anglo-Saxon and contemporary American. Common nicknames Em (the dominant short form, gender-neutral and casual), Emmy (also a popular standalone name on its own), and the rare Mitt each carry distinct registers; the alternate spellings Emmitt, Emmett (the more popular American form), and Emmet have their own SSA tracking. International forms include the broader Emma/Emmett family.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Emmitt
US Popularity History (2010–2025)
Annual US births named Emmitt by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2019 with 571 boys named Emmitt (boy rank #501 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #770 for boys (333 US births). That's 269 places below its 2019 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Emmitt Most Popular?
Average boy-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Emmitt the strongest states are North Dakota, Maine, West Virginia.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | North Dakota | #174 | 27 |
| 2 | Maine | #189 | 28 |
| 3 | West Virginia | #332 | 17 |
| 4 | Wisconsin | #345 | 161 |
| 5 | Idaho | #352 | 19 |
| 6 | Minnesota | #360 | 153 |
| 7 | Indiana | #361 | 192 |
| 8 | Kentucky | #363 | 123 |
| 9 | Nebraska | #372 | 53 |
| 10 | Ohio | #375 | 287 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New York | #926 | 86 |
| 2 | Georgia | #822 | 63 |
| 3 | California | #808 | 248 |
| 4 | Florida | #746 | 178 |
| 5 | Virginia | #713 | 77 |
| 6 | Maryland | #706 | 40 |
| 7 | Massachusetts | #670 | 45 |
| 8 | Arizona | #637 | 85 |
| 9 | North Carolina | #633 | 113 |
| 10 | Louisiana | #632 | 64 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Emmitt in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Emmett | Male Variant Of Emma: A Premedieval Girl's Given Name. | Male | English |
Famous People Named Emmitt
1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Emmitt.
- Emmitt Smith — Football Player (1969)
Looking for names like Emmitt?
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.
Compare Emmitt to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Emmitt against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).