Is July 16 Emily's name day?

In much of Europe a name day is a fixed date on a published calendar, and the reference lists record Emilia name days in Austria, Finland, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Hungary and Slovakia. None of them falls on July 16, and no name day at all is recorded for the spelling Emily.

Is Emily a form of Amelia?

No. Emily descends from the Latin Aemilius, while Amelia is Germanic with a root meaning laborious, and reference works treat Amelia as an unrelated name. They were merged in English use, not by descent.

Who created National Emily Day?

The day circulates as a name-appreciation observance kept each July 16 by people who share the name and by their friends. No founder, organisation or establishing record for it has been identified.

National Emily Day

Next celebratedFriday, July 16, 2027

More American girls were named Emily in the decade the name finished third than in the decade it finished first, 237,262 in the 1990s against 223,768 in the 2000s.

See how to celebrate

Countdown to the day

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Last updated August 18, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATEJuly 16

OBSERVED INInternationally

CATEGORYNames

ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY

Not documented

FIRST OBSERVED

Not documented

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

Observed by the people who carry the name.

No founder, establishing organisation or formal record of National Emily Day has been identified. It circulates as a name-appreciation day, marked each July 16 by people who carry the name.

+ Know the story? Submit a founder Help us complete this holiday

INTRO

237,262 births in the decade Emily did not win

More American girls were named Emily in the decade the name finished third than in the decade it finished first. That is not a rounding error. National Emily Day belongs to a name whose biggest decade by headcount and best decade by rank are two different decades.

The Social Security Administration counted 237,262 Emilys born in the United States across the 1990s, when the name ranked third for the decade. Across the 2000s, the decade it finished first, the total came to 223,768.

The day is for the name itself, not for any one person who carries it. The name can take the weight. It has been the most popular girls' name in two countries, at two different times, and it is sliding in both.

ORIGINS

Emily Day history

INTRODUCTION

Emily is a Roman name with a competitive root. It reaches English through the French Emilie and the Latin Aemilia, the feminine form of the Roman family name Aemilius. That family name traces back to aemulus, meaning imitating or rivaling.

It is also, constantly, mistaken for Amelia. Amelia is traced instead to a Germanic root said to mean laborious, closer to work than to rivalry. The two names sound like cousins and share no ancestor.

CHAPTER 01

Chaucer gets there first

The form turns up early in English. Chaucer used the spelling Emelye in The Knight's Tale, a poem the University of Oxford's English faculty describes as based on the Teseida by Boccaccio. His Emily is a prisoner of war taken by Theseus, roaming an enclosed garden while Palamon and Arcite fight over her.

CHAPTER 02

The princess who answered to the wrong name

The name stayed uncommon in English for centuries. That changed with the House of Hanover. Princess Amelia Sophia was born in 1711, and Westminster Abbey's own record of her reads "Princess Amelia (often called Emily in England)".

She never married. As Ranger of Richmond Park she tried to restrict public access, which proved controversial. She was buried in the Hanoverian vault beneath Henry VII's Chapel, and the memorial stone later cut for her records Amelia Sophia Eleonora, leaving the English nickname off.

CHAPTER 03

The climb to number one

The modern rise was quick. Emily entered the American top five in 1993, in fifth place. It held third for the next two years, then took the top spot and kept it.

National Emily Day rides on that record rather than adding to it. Who attached the name to a July date, and why, has never been documented. The name is doing the work, as it has since Aemilius.

TIMELINE

Timeline

A Hanoverian princess called Emily

Amelia Sophia was born in Hanover and became known in England by a name unrelated to her own.

Wuthering Heights reaches print

Emily Bronte's only novel appeared in December under the pen name Ellis Bell.

Dickinson objects to being printed

After a poem of hers reached print, she wrote that she did not print.

Davison dies at the Derby

Emily Wilding Davison died after a collision with the King's horse during the race.

Emily reaches number one

Emily became the most popular girls' name in the United States for the first time.

Emma takes the American top spot

Emma overtook Emily, which slipped to third on the national list.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Emily Day

LANGUAGE

A given name that became the American test for good manners.

Emily Post published Etiquette in 1922, and the phrase "according to Emily Post" entered the American lexicon as the last word on social conduct. The book has run to nineteen editions since.

REACH

Still in the England and Wales top ten

The Office for National Statistics found that Emily was one of only four girls' names in the England and Wales top ten in both 2006 and 2016. The other three were Olivia, Lily and Jessica.

Parliament keeps a file on an Emily

Emily Wilding Davison's protests survive in Parliament's own police reports, kept in a Serjeant-at-Arms file titled "Police and Suffragettes". Tony Benn later put up a plaque in the building marking the night she stayed there.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Emily Day by the Numbers

12 years: Emily at No. 1 in the US, 1996-2007
851,785: US girls named Emily, 1926-2025
20th: Emily's US rank, 2020-2025 births
9 years: Emily at No. 1 in Ireland, 2011-2019
Joint 6th: Emily's Irish rank, 2025 births

GOOD TO KNOW

Emilys with a paper trail

Emily Dickinson

Eleven of her nearly eighteen hundred poems reached print in her lifetime, and the museum in her house states that most were published without her direct consent.

Emily Bronte

The University at Buffalo's first British edition of Wuthering Heights is a three-volume set whose third volume is not hers at all, but her sister Anne's Agnes Grey.

Emily Wilding Davison

The 1911 census taker gave her address as "Found hiding in crypt of Westminster Hall" and spelled her surname Davidson.

Emily Warren Roebling

The Federal Highway Administration calls her the surrogate chief engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge, from 1872 until it opened.

Emily Post

Etiquette ranked as the second book most likely to be stolen from public libraries, behind only the Bible.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Emily Day

Look up the year you were born

Social Security publishes the top five American names for every year of the last century. Find where Emily sat the year you arrived, then send the result to the nearest Emily.

READ

Read the poems Dickinson saw in print

The Emily Dickinson Museum keeps a list of the work that reached publication in her lifetime. It is a very short list for a lifetime of writing.

OPEN

Open the census form that hid an Emily

UK Parliament has published the enumerator's schedule that recorded Emily Wilding Davison inside the House of Commons. It is one page, and it repays a close look.

COMPARE

Compare the name across two countries

Ireland's Central Statistics Office publishes its own annual ranking of babies' names. Emily's Irish curve runs on a different schedule from its American one.

ASK

Ask an Emily where the name came from

Family stories about a name rarely match its etymology, and both are worth hearing. Compare the answer you get with the Roman family name behind it.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Emily Day?

1 / 8

Which language gives the name Emily its root?

Answer

No. It is an unofficial observance with no located proclamation, resolution or official recognition anywhere, so July 16 is a normal working day.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

23sources

17primary records

6independently dated

Primary records

Social Security Administration2009-05-08

America's Parents Vote for Change on Social Security's Most Popular Baby Names List

The agency announcing that Emma had ended Emily's twelve-year reign at number one.