Ellis

Ellis is a former Old Man Name turned gender-neutral choice for the 21st century. It's one of the less used names in the currently popular El-family, unless you're in the UK, where it's a Top 100 choice.

Ellis has two separate roots: on one hand, it's an English surname, derived from Elias and Elijah, Greek and Hebrew names meaning "my God is Yahweh". On the other hand, it's popular Welsh name, also spelled as Elis, ultimately from the Old Welsh Elisedd (eh-lih-seth), meaning "benevolent, kind".

Ellis Bell was the male pseudonym of Emily Bronte when she wrote Wuthering Heights, while Ellis Marsalis is the paterfamilias of the noted jazz family, father of Wynton, Branford and others. There have been a number of Ellises on the big and small screen too: in The Wire, Grey's Anatomy and No Country for Old Men. As a surname, it's associated with designer Perry, writer Bret Easton and psychologist Havelock.

Predominantly used as a boy name in England and Wales, where it was given to 570 boys compared to 24 girls in recent stats, in the US, it is a unisex option, in the Top 1000 for both sexes. Masculine leaning, it was given to 1250 boys and 400 girls, meaning roughly three quarters of all babies called Ellis were boys in a recent year.

Pronounced EL-iss.

As of October 2026, Ellis ranked #243 in US births in 2025 SSA, peaked at #155 in 1899, Nameberry popularity #40.