The first name Emma means ‘the great’, but also ‘the all-embracing’. The name originally comes from Old High German, where the terms ‘irmina’ and ‘ermana’ mean ‘ whole’ respectively ‘universal’.
Emma is a female first name. In very rare cases it is also used for boys.
Emma is extremely common as a first name for girls. Currently, over 20,000 babies are named Emma each year, giving it first place for girls in the SmartGenius first name statistics. Of all the girls born in the last ten years, 1.2 % are named Emma. In total, there are currently 654,363 people – children, adults and seniors – named Emma living in the United States, which is approximately 0.20 % of the entire population.
The first name Emma means ‘the great’, but also ‘the all-embracing’. The name originally comes from Old High German, where the terms ‘irmina’ and ‘ermana’ mean ‘ whole’ respectively ‘universal’.
By the way… Some researchers believe that Emma is a derivative of the name Irmgard, others think it is a short form of Emanuela.
Emma Thompson (*1959)
The British actress received several awards, including two Oscars - one for best actress and one for her screenplay adaptation of "Sense and Sensibility".
Emma Chamberlain (*2001)
She shares her content especially on Youtube and won the 2018 Streamy Award for Breakout Creator. In 2019 she even made it on Time magazine's Time 100 Next list.
Emma Green (*1984)
The high jumper became Swedish champion six times and participated in various world championships as well as the Olympic Games in Beijing, 2009.
Emma Bovary
Gustave Flaubert created the heroine, Emma, in his tragic novel "Madame Bovary," which is now considered one of the great works of world literature.
Emma Watson (*1990)
The British actress became famous with her role as "Hermione Granger" in the film adaptation of "Harry Potter". Since 2014, she has been a UN Special Ambassador for Women's and Girls' Rights and a high-profile feminist.
Emma Boos-Jegher (1857 - 1932)
The Swiss activist campaigned for the abolition of prostitution and was a co-founder of a Swiss women's movement.
When you hear the name Emma, you might first think of a woman or a girl. But did you know that there are also places with the name Emma? Are you also called Emma? Maybe one day you will visit the places that are named just like you...
near the Antarctic Peninsula, 1.74 miles (2.8 km) long, is called Emma.
towns and villages with the name Emma in the U.S.: In the states of Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri and West Virginia.
The Espoo Museum of Modern Art is located in the south of Finland and is known as EMMA.
Some ships of the US Navy like to be named USS Emma - so did a patrol boat in the first world war.
6 - this is the number of times that the first name Emma has entered the top position, i.e. rank 1, of the most popular first names for girls in the USA. The last time was not so long ago, in the year 2018, when 18,795 newborn girls were given this beautiful name. And even when it wasn't on top in the past, it has been given by new parents to their daughters every year since first name statistics began in 1880, putting it in the exclusive circle of only 432 first names for girls that are given at least 5 times a year in the USA. This makes Emma one of the timeless classics among first names that have truly become part of the American identity.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Emma was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
In 2022, the first name Emma was given 14,450 times to newborn girls, ranking it #2. The name was given least in the year 1976, where it ranked #449 - but even then 414 of newborn girls were given this first name.
Regardless of where you live in the US, chances are you know someone called Emma. Because: There are women and girls named Emma in every state in the USA. If this does not sound particularly spectacular to you, you should know that of the more than 50,000 different female first names that occur in the USA, just 537 are recorded in each individual state, so the name Emma is definitely something very special. In some regions it even makes it into the top 10 of the most popular female first names, for example in Utah, where Emma ranks on place 10, making it one of the most common female first names in the entire state. The greatest chance of meeting Emma, however, is in Nevada, where one in 134 girls and women bears this beautiful name – that is far above average – in the entire USA it is only one in 236, women and girls and in New York, where the name is least represented in relation to the population, you even have to ask an average of 331 women and girls for their name before you once get Emma as an answer.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter E is neither particularly common nor particularly rare as a first letter for girls' names: 3.9% of all common girls' names in the US begin with this letter. The most common first letters of girls' names, by the way, are A, S and M, while U, X and Q are the least common initials of girls' names.
With four letters, the name Emma is shorter than most other given names. In fact, only 5.5% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly four letters. Just 1.2% of all first names are even shorter, while 93% consist of more than four letters. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long. There are no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.
That means that with 3.9%, E as the first letter in girls' names is almost as common as all 26 letters on average - and of all the girls' names that start with an E, Elizabeth is the most common.
If your name is Emma and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...
So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Emma, you can simply say:
Elephant
Mouse
Mouse
Apple
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Emma
Emma
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.
In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Emma sounds like this: