Elmer
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in English: A surname transferred from the given name
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ɛlmɚ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Elmer is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- PEPeru≈1 in 645(inferred from the name graph)
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 749
- SESweden1 in 4.1K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Elmer itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 413 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 645 (inferred from the name graph)
≈320,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Peru, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Transferred use of the surname, itself derived from an Old English personal name derived from x6el ‘noble’ + mér ‘famous’. This has been used as a given name in the United States since the roth century, in honour of the brothers Ebenezer and Jonathan Elmer, leading activists in the American Revolution. It is also found in Canada.
Sources 1
- A concise dictionary of first names
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
How Elmer is read(measured from records)
Elmer is one spelling over 2 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- English58%
A surname transferred from the given name.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Spanish33%
Del anglosajón Aylmer, o del germánico Agilmar: 'famoso por su espada'.
as a nameDiccionario etimológico de nombres propios
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Elmer counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈320,000 est. | ≈1 in 4.3K | — | Elmer | 17 |
| PH Philippines | #206 | ≈150,000 est. | ≈1 in 749 | — | Elmer | 123 |
| PE Peru | — | ≈49,000 est. | ≈1 in 645 | — | Elmer | 55 |
| US United States | #635 | 38,051 | 1 in 8.7K | 38K | Elmer | 413 |
| GB United Kingdom | #785 | ≈8,000 est. | ≈1 in 8.2K | — | Elmer | 144 |
| SE Sweden | #984 | 2,494 | 1 in 4.1K | 2.5K | Elmer | 26 |
| CR Costa Rica | — | 1,411 | 1 in 3.6K | 1.4K | — | 1 |
| IS Iceland | — | 446as Elmar | 1 in 786 | 446 | Elmer | 1 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names; Þjóðskrá Íslands — Name frequencies (NafnTíðni, registry). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Elmer is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Transferred use of the surname, itself derived from an Old English personal name derived from x6el ‘noble’ + mér ‘famous’. This has been used as a given name in the United States since the roth century, in honour of the brothers Ebenezer and Jonathan Elmer, leading activists in the American Revolution. It is also found in Canada.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In Swedish, Elmer är av engelskt ursprung, fornengelskt Æthelmær, sammansatt av Æthel(→ Adel-) och -mær(e) ’berömd’ (motsvarande urnordiskt *mārir ’utmärkt, berömlig’). I den finlandssvenska almanackan 3 januari.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
Noble
as a name25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado
English: transferred use of the surname, which is itself derived from an Old English personal name composed of the elements æðel noble + m r famous. This has been used as a given name in America since the 19th century, in honour of the brothers Ebenezer and Jonathan Elmer, leading supporters of the American Revolution.
as a word
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Elmer McCollumb. 1879USAmerican biochemist (1879-1967)
- Elmer Boothb. 1882USAmerican actor (1882-1915)
- Harry Elmer Barnesb. 1889USAmerican historian and holocaust denier (1889–1968)
- Elmer Cliftonb. 1890USAmerican film director (1890–1949)
- Elmer Riceb. 1892USAmerican playwright (1892–1967)
- Elmer Bernsteinb. 1922USAmerican composer and conductor (1922-2004)
- Rip Taylorb. 1931USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor and comedian (1931–2019)
- George Patakib. 1945USnot in their usual nameGovernor of New York from 1995 to 2006
- Butch Hartmanb. 1965USnot in their usual nameAmerican animator (born 1965)
- Chayanneb. 1968USnot in their usual namePuerto Rican singer
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 75 sources across 41 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 38K | #1,086 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 2.5K | #924 |
| CR Costa Rica | TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names | — | 1.4K | #451 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 1.3K | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 275 | #1,086 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 165 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1980 | 5 | — |
| IS Iceland | Þjóðskrá Íslands — Name frequencies (NafnTíðni, registry) | 2026 | 3 | — |
Reference works 6
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- Where does the name Elmer come from?
- Transferred use of the surname, itself derived from an Old English personal name derived from x6el ‘noble’ + mér ‘famous’. Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names.
- Is Elmer a male or female name?
- Elmer is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What does the name Elmer mean?
- In English, A surname transferred from the given name.
- In which country does Elmer have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 320 thousand people named Elmer in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled elmer.
- How do you pronounce Elmer?
- A machine transcription gives /ɛlmɚ/ (IPA) for English.
- How common is the name Elmer?
- In the United States, the national register counted 38,051 people named Elmer in 2020, about 1 in 8.7 thousand residents.
- How common is Elmer compared with other names?
- In the Philippines, Elmer is the 206th most common given name of 486,299 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Elmer?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/elmerThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Elmer” — the 206th most common given name in Philippines. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.