Elias, Luca, Eliana: the names that climb every single year

In 2015 Elias was the 100th most popular boys' name in America. In 2016 it was 93rd. Then 77th, 67th, 60th, 54th, 48th, 43rd, 35th, 25th, and this year 13th. Ten years, ten rises, not one year level or down. It is one of 17 boys' names that have climbed the American rankings in every single year since 2015. For girls there are 22.

A name does not usually move like that. Most names wobble. They go up two years, slip one, go up again. So we went looking for the names that have not wobbled at all, in the last ten years and in 129 years before that, and for what happened to them afterwards. The short version: the longest climb on record is 24 years, the longest fall is 48, and a name falls far more steadily than it rises.

How we counted

A streak is a run of years in which a name's rank got better every year, or worse every year. A year with no change ends it. For 2015 to 2025 we use the official American rankings, which gives ten steps. For 1880 to 2008 we use the long series, which records each name's share of births and so its place, and the same rule applies. Boys and girls are counted from their own lists. We do not hold 2009 to 2014, so the two runs are measured separately and never joined across the gap. There is no hand-picking. A name is on the list if its rank moved the same way every year, and not otherwise.

One thing to know about the ten-year lists. A name has to be in the top 1,000 in all eleven years to count, because a name that is off the list has no rank to compare. 763 boys' names and 725 girls' names were, and the streaks are drawn from those.

The 39 names that climbed every year

Here are the boys. Elias at the top, then Luca, 157th in 2015 and 14th now. Arthur is on the list, 292nd to 87th, which is its first time inside the American top 100 since 1969 and a long way below the 5th it holds in England and Wales. The last column is the England and Wales rank for 2025, left blank for names given to fewer than 50 boys here.

And the girls. Eliana leads, 102nd to 10th, and it is the one name on either list to have reached the top ten. Lainey has come furthest, 576th to 30th. Margot started outside the top 500.

Three things stand out. In 2015 only one of the 39 was inside the top 100, and that was Elias at exactly 100th. Now 21 are. For 32 of the 39, 2025 is the highest the name has ever been in 140 years of American records. The seven exceptions are old names on their way back: Arthur was 14th in 1880, Elsie 31st in 1896, Josephine 21st in 1916, June 39th in 1925, August 74th in 1880, Leon 74th in 1921 and Rosie 114th in 1910. And Sutton is on both lists, climbing for boys and for girls at once.

Elias may have been climbing for longer than ten years. In the long series it went up in every year from 1990, when it was 360th, to 2008, when it was 157th. That is 18 years. We cannot see 2009 to 2014, so we will not call it 35 years, but nothing we hold shows it going down.

The 82 that fell every year

More names fall every year than rise every year. 45 boys' names and 37 girls' have gone down in every one of the ten steps. Aiden was 13th in 2015 and is 62nd. Aubrey was 21st and is 146th. 26 of the 82 were in the top 100 in 2015, 13 of each sex, and four still are: Aiden, Zoey 69th, Andrew 73rd and Ryan 99th.

Two of them were once the number one girls' name in the country. Jessica, first in 1985, has fallen every year from 206th to 665th. Jennifer, first in 1970, from 251st to 586th. The boys' list has Tyler (5th in 1993), Brandon (6th in 1992), Justin (7th in 1988) and Richard (5th in 1930). It also has most of the Aidan family we wrote about in the spelling wars: Aiden, Ayden, Aidan, Jaden, Jaiden, Kaden, Caiden and Brayden, all falling every year. The full lists are at the foot of the page.

Down is steadier than up

That gap, 82 falling against 39 rising, is not a quirk of the last ten years. Over five years, 2020 to 2025, 141 names have risen every year and 211 have fallen every year. In the long series it is the same at every length. Climbs of ten years or more, 1880 to 2008: 248 for boys' names and 312 for girls'. Falls of ten years or more: 323 and 581. Climbs of twenty years or more: 14 and 17. Falls of twenty years or more: 37 and 92. And the longest fall on record, 48 years, is twice the longest climb.

We can tell you that happens. We cannot tell you why from the files, which record what parents chose and not what they were thinking. The numbers fit a picture in which a name climbs in fits and starts and then, once parents have moved on, goes down a little further every year for decades. But that is a picture, not a finding.

The longest climbs: 24 years

Two names share the record. Tonya was 734th in 1949 and climbed in every one of the next 24 years to 36th in 1973. Austin was 515th in 1972 and climbed every year to 9th in 1996. Then the two did very different things. Austin held at 9th in 1997, was still 23rd in 2000 and 55th in 2008, and is 113th today. Tonya was 37th in 1974, 97th in 1980, 365th in 1990, and left the top 1,000 after 1997.

Here is every climb of 21 years or more. Four of them ended at number one or two: Lisa climbed from 737th in 1941 to first in 1962, Ashley from 771st in 1964 to second in 1985 and first six years later, and Emma from 458th in 1978 to 17th in 1999, and on to first in 2008. Lisa is 991st now. Emma is third.

The longest falls: 48 years

Hazel was 34th in 1921. It then went down in every single year until 1969, when it was 687th. 48 years. It kept going, left the top 1,000 in 1976 and stayed out for 22 years. And then it came all the way back: 343rd in 2008, 63rd in 2015, 21st today, and 71st in England and Wales. Gertrude fell for 43 years, from 39th to 850th, and was last listed in 1965. Florence fell for 42 years, 18th to 451st, and is 391st in America now, and fifth in England and Wales.

The longest fall for a boys' name is Larry. It was tenth in 1947, and from 1968, when it was 38th, it went down every year for 38 years to 379th in 2006. It was last in the top 1,000 in 2022.

What happens when a long climb ends

A fair question about Elias and Eliana is what comes next. We cannot see their future, but we can see what happened to every name that did this before. There are 128 climbs of 15 years or more that ended by 1998, so that ten years are visible afterwards. Not one of those names was out of the top 1,000 ten years after its climb ended. 72 were lower ten years on and 56 were higher or level. And only two, Jill and Angelia, had fallen back below where their climb started within twenty years.

Narrow it to the 88 climbs that ended inside the top 100 by 1988, and 79 of the names were still in the top 100 ten years later, and 66 twenty years later. Compare that with the names that arrived in a hurry. We took every name that went from outside the top 300 to inside the top 100 within five years, the Dewey pattern from our article on the names parents stop giving. There are 48 of those by 1988, and 27 were still in the top 100 twenty years on. So a name that took the stairs kept its place three times in four, and a name that took the lift kept it a little over half the time. Why is not in the files. That it happened is.

England and Wales

We hold two years of British records, 2024 and 2025, so Britain cannot have streaks of its own yet. What we can do is check whether the American streaks show up here. They do, and the climbers are mostly names Britain already has. 13 of the 39 are in the England and Wales top 100: Luca 4th, Arthur 5th, Rowan 30th, Elias 69th and Enzo 84th for boys; Elsie 8th, Rosie 24th, Margot 30th, Millie 36th, Iris 57th, Lyla 61st, Eliana 62nd and Eloise 83rd for girls. Eliana went from 416 girls here in 2024 to 736 in 2025, the biggest jump of any name on the list.

Of the 39 climbers, 31 went to 50 or more babies here in both years. 20 of those had more babies in 2025 than in 2024 and 10 had fewer, in a year when births as a whole fell by between 1.5% and 2%. The clearest exception is Millie, 469th to 73rd in America and 1,255 to 1,080 girls here. The fallers match better. 32 of the 82 have 50 or more babies here, and 25 of them had fewer babies in 2025 than 2024. The two in the British top 100, Zachary at 75th and Hunter at 91st, both fell here too.

What we cannot tell you

Why any of these names moved. The files hold the choices, not the reasons, and a steady climb looks the same whether it comes from a television programme or from parents copying other parents. We cannot see 2009 to 2014, so an American streak that began before 2015 may be longer than we say, and Elias is the example. Before about 1915 the American files are small and ranks jumped about from year to year, so almost no name moved one way for five years running then, and the long streaks in our tables all start after 1900. And the rule is strict on purpose: a name that rose nine years out of ten is not on the list, and there are 30 boys' names and 27 girls' names in that position, among them Leo, Ezra, Aurora and Ivy.

What it means for you

If you want a name that is on its way up, the two tables near the top are the surest list we can give you, and the record says a slow climb usually holds. If you want a name nobody else in the class will have, the 82 at the foot of the page are getting rarer every year, and some of them, Jessica, Jennifer, Richard, Andrew, were the commonest names in the country within living memory. Either way, a name that has moved the same direction ten years running is not about to turn round next year. Hazel took 48 years to stop falling. It has been climbing ever since.