Emilie

Emilie is the German and Scandinavian form of Emily. This is also the version of Emily the French use but with an accent over the first “E” as in Émilie (in France the name is pronounced “ay-mee-LEE”). Emily and Emilie developed during the Middle Ages from the Latin name female Aemilia which itself is an off-shoot of the Old Roman family name Aemilius (from the Latin “aemulus” meaning “rival”). In fact, the Aemilius family name is believed to date back to the 7th century B.C. even before the formation of the Roman Republic! Like the gens (family) Fabia, Claudia and Valeria, the gens Aemilia was not only patrician (i.e., noble, aristocratic), but they were among the most important and respected families of the upper classes. In other words, the Aemilii were hard to “rival”! Folk etymology holds that the first ancestor to the Aemilius family (Mamercus, son of the second King of Rome) received the name Aemilius as a result of the unrivaled persuasiveness of his speech. In any case, the female names Emily and Emilie comes from one of the oldest known family names in Western Civilization. Although Emilia, Emilie and Emily date back to medieval Europe, they were never particular favorites for girls (probably because there was no important saint associated with them). It really wasn’t until modern times when the Emily names finally enjoyed a significant revival in the 19th century. They remain hugely popular today in the 21st century throughout the Western World. Emily was the #1 most commonly used baby girl’s name in the U.S. from 1996 to 2007 (today she’s ranked #6). The French, German and Scandinavian form of Émilie/Emilie is not as common as Emily in America but it’s the 3rd most popular girl’s name in Norway and ranked very highly in the nations of Germany, Denmark, Belgium and France.