Jane Austen published six novels between 1811 and 1817. They've never gone out of print. And their characters' names have become some of the most influential in American baby naming — not just because of the books, but because of the adaptations that have kept them alive and aspirational for 200 years.
The irony is that Austen herself was named after a saint, not a character. But her heroines — Emma, Charlotte, Elizabeth, Anne, Marianne, Elinor, Catherine — have shaped naming culture in ways she couldn't have imagined.
The data
| Character | Novel | Name | 1994 Rank | 2014 Rank | 2024 Rank | 2024 Babies |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Emma Woodhouse | Emma | Emma | #17 | #1 | #8 | 14,621 |
| Charlotte Lucas | Pride & Prejudice | Charlotte | #110 | #12 | #4 | 16,311 |
| Elizabeth Bennet | Pride & Prejudice | Elizabeth | #4 | #13 | #20 | 12,042 |
| Elinor Dashwood | Sense & Sensibility | Eleanor | #230 | #93 | #35 | 7,901 |
| Lydia Bennet | Pride & Prejudice | Lydia | #140 | #125 | #352 | 924 |
| Anne Elliot | Persuasion | Anne | #186 | #440 | #533 | 570 |
| Fitzwilliam Darcy | Pride & Prejudice | Darcy (girls) | ~#600 | ~#750 | #549 | 549 |
| Jane Bennet | Pride & Prejudice | Jane | #303 | #282 | #241 | 1,432 |
Emma: from Austen heroine to #1
Emma — Girls #8, 14,621 babies in 2024.
Emma Woodhouse — "handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition" — is Austen's most self-satisfied heroine. She's also given her name to more American girls than any other literary character in history.
| Year | Rank | Babies |
|---|---|---|
| 1994 | #17 | 9,204 |
| 2000 | #12 | 11,320 |
| 2004 | #3 | 14,891 |
| 2008 | #2 | 18,587 |
| 2012 | #1 | 20,491 |
| 2014 | #1 | 20,799 |
| 2018 | #2 | 18,688 |
| 2022 | #4 | 15,340 |
| 2024 | #8 | 14,621 |
Emma was #1 for five consecutive years (2014-2018). It's now declining from that peak, which is the natural cycle for any name that dominant (see generational-names). The name benefited from: the 1996 film with Gwyneth Paltrow, the 2009 BBC miniseries, the 2020 film adaptation, and the general Jane Austen renaissance that has run continuously since the 1990s.
Emma is also a short, clean, easy-to-spell name that works across languages — an advantage that compounds all the literary associations.
Charlotte: Austen's most popular name in 2024
Charlotte — Girls #4, 16,311 babies in 2024.
Charlotte Lucas is a secondary character in Pride and Prejudice — Elizabeth Bennet's practical friend who makes the sensible-but-disappointing choice to marry Mr. Collins. Yet her name has outranked Elizabeth in American naming for a decade.
| Year | Rank | Babies |
|---|---|---|
| 1994 | #110 | 2,698 |
| 2000 | #110 | 3,041 |
| 2004 | #83 | 4,694 |
| 2010 | #45 | 7,236 |
| 2014 | #12 | 14,080 |
| 2018 | #6 | 15,878 |
| 2020 | #3 | 16,462 |
| 2024 | #4 | 16,311 |
Charlotte got an enormous boost from two Royal Baby moments: Charlotte, Princess of Wales was born in 2015 (see royal-baby-names), and the name was already top-20 when it happened. The royal naming accelerated what was already a strong trend. Charlotte is now so established in the top 5 that it reads as a classic rather than a trend name.
Elizabeth: the name that held on
Elizabeth — Girls #20, 12,042 babies in 2024.
Elizabeth Bennet is the most beloved of all Austen heroines — witty, principled, and independent. The name Elizabeth has been in continuous top-25 use for over a century, making it one of the most durable names in American history.
| Year | Rank | Babies |
|---|---|---|
| 1954 | #5 | 25,892 |
| 1974 | #13 | 14,480 |
| 1994 | #4 | 21,942 |
| 2004 | #9 | 16,082 |
| 2014 | #13 | 12,912 |
| 2020 | #17 | 10,962 |
| 2024 | #20 | 12,042 |
Elizabeth's slight recovery in 2024 (from #17 to #20, up in raw count) suggests it may have bottomed out. It's one of the few names that can plausibly claim both timelessness AND current fashion — it's been in the top 20 for so long that it's essentially non-generational.
Queen Elizabeth II (who died in 2022) gave the name a final sentimental boost in the years after her passing, visible in a slight uptick in 2023-2024.
Eleanor: the breakout Austen name
Eleanor — Girls #35, 7,901 babies in 2024.
Elinor Dashwood is the composed, rational elder sister in Sense and Sensibility. The modern spelling Eleanor (the traditional Plantagenet form) has had the most dramatic rise of any Austen name.
| Year | Rank | Babies |
|---|---|---|
| 1994 | #230 | 1,275 |
| 2004 | #372 | 878 |
| 2010 | #207 | 1,666 |
| 2014 | #93 | 4,427 |
| 2018 | #51 | 6,770 |
| 2022 | #33 | 8,152 |
| 2024 | #35 | 7,901 |
Eleanor was already part of the vintage revival before Sense and Sensibility adaptations, but the association helped. The name benefits from the Roosevelt connection (Eleanor Roosevelt), the nickname Ellie (which is independently top-30), and the melodic four-syllable flow that parents seeking an "elaborate" name find satisfying. See long-baby-names.
Darcy: the heroine tribute that took decades
Darcy — Girls #549, 549 babies in 2024.
Fitzwilliam Darcy is one of the most famous male literary characters in the English language. His first name is almost never used. But the surname Darcy — borrowed and reassigned as a girls' name — has been climbing quietly for years.
| Year | Rank (girls) | Babies |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | ~#800 | ~260 |
| 2010 | ~#700 | ~340 |
| 2014 | ~#750 | ~310 |
| 2020 | #596 | 494 |
| 2024 | #549 | 549 |
Darcy as a girls name is a tribute name for Pride and Prejudice fans — the choice of parents who are naming their daughter after the romantic ideal, not the character himself. It's a different mechanism than most Austen name effects: instead of naming after a heroine, parents are naming after the love interest, gender-flipping the surname.
What Austen did to naming
Jane Austen's influence on American baby naming is both direct (Emma, Charlotte, Elizabeth) and indirect (the general revival of Regency-era elegance that also lifts Bridgerton names, see bridgerton-names).
The key mechanism: Austen adaptations keep arriving, introducing each new generation of parents to her heroines. The 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice created Colin Firth, the 1996 Emma created Gwyneth Paltrow's career peak, the 2005 Keira Knightley film introduced millennials. Now Gen Z parents who grew up with those films are naming their daughters.
The pattern suggests Austen will keep influencing naming as long as her work remains in print — which shows no sign of stopping.
See literary-names for the broader picture of fiction's influence on baby naming.