Emma

Emma meaning

Emma is an international girl's name of Germanic origin.

Short form of names in Ermen- or Irmin-, 'whole, universal, immense'

Emma began as a Germanic short form of longer names beginning with Ermen- or Irmin-, such as Ermentrude and Ermengard; etymonline describes it as a contraction of names like these. The element ermen- appears in Old English as eormen, which Bosworth-Toller's dictionary glosses as universal, immense, whole and general, so Emma is usually given as "whole" or "universal". The Norman noblewoman Emma of Normandy was queen of England twice, as wife of Æthelred and then of Cnut, and is the name's best-known medieval bearer. Jane Austen's novel Emma (1815) gave it lasting literary fame.

Source: Bosworth-Toller, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (1898), entry 9535 · entry eormen · See the entry · checked 25 Oct 2026

References: Online Etymology Dictionary, Emma · Bosworth-Toller, eormen · Wikipedia, Emma of Normandy

Famous namesakes

• Emma of Normandy, queen of England
• Emma Woodhouse, heroine of Jane Austen's Emma

Popularity abroad

• #3 United States, girls 2025 (down 1 from 2 in 2024)
  US Social Security Administration
• #85 England and Wales, girls 2025
  Office for National Statistics

Official birth registrations. India publishes no national name statistics.

Spellings

Emma · Ema · Emmah

Related names

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