Elsey
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from OE Ælfsige ‘elf-victory’; first attested Alfsi 1066 DB (Sf)
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 7 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020
/ˈɛɫsi/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Elsey is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 60K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 195K
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 107K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 259 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 60K (inferred from the name graph)
1,705 people, 2010
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
United Kingdom, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)from OE Ælfsige ‘elf-victory’; first attested Alfsi 1066 DB (Sf)
Cited for this meaning 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Where in the world
(measured from records)Elsey 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | 1,705 | 1 in 195K | 1.7K | Elsey | 259 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 60K | listed | Elsey | 142 |
| AU Australia | ≈220 est. | ≈1 in 116K | 1 | Elsey | 54 |
| EG Egypt | ≈220 est. | ≈1 in 473K | — | Elsey | 4 |
| CA Canada | ≈200 est. | ≈1 in 193K | 1 | Elsey | 72 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈46 est. | ≈1 in 107K | — | Elsey | 15 |
| IS Iceland | ≈2 est. | ≈1 in 194K | listed | — | — |
1,705 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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 — Surname Frequency 2010; the hanks-dictionary-surnames-1988 register; SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender. 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)Elsey is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, Allfsige, composed of the elements celf elf + sige victory. Vars.: Elsie, Elsy, Elcy. Elshenar see Alexander
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
In English, JElfsige, composed of the elements celf elf + sige victory. Vars.: Elsie, Elsy, Elcy. Elshenar see Alexander
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
In English, A surname from Old English.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)- Joseph Ravenscroft Elseyb. 1834GBBritish surgeon, explorer and naturalist (1834-1857)
- William Elseyb. 1880GBAustralian anglican bishop
- George Elseyb. 1918USAmerican Presidential advisor
- Karl Elseyb. 1958GBWelsh footballer (born 1958)
- Wayne Elseyb. 1965USAmerican entrepreneur, philanthropist, social activist
- Dave Elseyb. 1967GBmake-up artist
- Jordan Elseyb. 1994AUAustralian footballer
- Helen ElseyGBresearcher
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)Evidence
(measured from records)16 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 7 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 1.7K | #16,761 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 1.7K | #15,921 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1.5K | #17,981 |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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
- What does the name Elsey mean, and where does it come from?
- from OE Ælfsige ‘elf-victory’; first attested Alfsi 1066 DB (Sf) Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- How do you pronounce Elsey?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈɛɫsi/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Elsey have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 1.7 thousand people named Elsey, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled elsey.
- How common is the name Elsey?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,705 people named Elsey in 2010, about 1 in 195 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Elsey?
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/elseyThe 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, “Elsey”. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.