Emerson, a surname-turned-given-name, translates to "son of Emery," making it a patronymic name given to the son of someone named Emery. It was primarily used as a boy's name throughout much of the 1900s before falling off the Social Security Administration's top 1,000 in the 1970s. It has since regained popularity as a boy's name, but is now more common among girls and has been a top-200 girl's name every year since 2014. It's the name "Madam Secretary" star Patina Miller gave her daughter, Emerson Harper Mars, born in 2017, and the name singer-actress Ashley Tisdale gave her daughter, Emerson Clover, born in 2024. Other parents prefer to spell it Emersyn.
