Famous Emilys
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40 free Famous Emilys trivia questions with answers — pop culture quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Emily is a name with range. It belongs to a reclusive New England poet, a Yorkshire novelist who wrote under a man's name, a suffragette who gave her life for the vote, and one of Hollywood's most bankable leading ladies. This quiz gathers them together. Most questions name a famous Emily and ask what she wrote, built, played or won. Others turn to fictional Emilys: the heroines of classic plays and short stories, sitcom characters, cartoon favourites, and the women who had songs named after them in the 1960s. It suits a themed quiz night, a birthday round for the Emily in your life, or anyone who likes general knowledge with a twist. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you pick something up even when you guess wrong.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Emily Brontë published which 1847 novel of doomed love on the Yorkshire moors under the pen-name Ellis Bell?
Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights was not generally admired at first: many critics found its characters coarse and immoral, and Emily died a year after it came out, aged 30.
Q 02Emily Blunt broke through in 2006 as Emily Charlton, senior assistant to fashion editor Miranda Priestly, in which film?
The Devil Wears Prada
The Devil Wears Prada left Meryl Streep so impressed that she called Blunt the best young actress she had worked with in some time, perhaps ever.
Q 03In Friends, Ross Geller says which woman's name instead of Emily's during their London wedding vows?
Rachel
Rachel had flown to London to tell Ross she loved him, and a livid Emily went on with the ceremony, then locked herself in the bathroom at the reception.
Q 04Which actress plays Emily Cooper, a Chicago marketing executive posted to France, in the Netflix series Emily in Paris?
Lily Collins
Lily Collins is the daughter of the English musician Phil Collins, and she is also a producer of the series, which earned her an Emmy nomination in that role.
Q 05Emily Warren Roebling spent a decade steering which New York landmark to completion after her engineer husband fell ill?
Brooklyn Bridge
Brooklyn Bridge honoured her before it officially opened: Emily was the first to cross it by carriage, carrying a rooster as a sign of victory.
Q 06Suffragette Emily Davison died after stepping in front of King George V's horse Anmer at which 1913 race?
Epsom Derby
Epsom Derby crowds watched her go onto the track mid-race; by then she had been arrested nine times and force-fed in prison on forty-nine occasions.
Q 07Emily Post became America's best-known authority on which subject with a bestselling 1922 book?
Etiquette
Etiquette was a late change of course: Post had already published five novels, and in 1950 a magazine ranked her the second most powerful woman in America.
Q 08Emily Elizabeth is the eight-year-old owner of which enormous pet in Norman Bridwell's children's books?
Clifford
Clifford got his name from the imaginary childhood friend of Bridwell's wife, while Emily Elizabeth was named after the author's own daughter.
Q 09Emily Osment played Lilly Truscott, best friend of Miley Cyrus's pop star character, in which Disney Channel series?
Hannah Montana
Hannah Montana made her the second screen star in her family: her older brother is Haley Joel Osment, who was nominated for an Academy Award as a child.
Q 10Emily Maitlis grilled which royal about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein in a notorious 2019 BBC Newsnight interview?
Prince Andrew
Prince Andrew resigned from his royal duties in the fallout, while the hour-long broadcast won Interview of the Year and Scoop of the Year at the 2020 RTS awards.
Q 11Emily Blunt played a mother hiding from sound-hunting creatures in A Quiet Place, directed by which actor, her husband?
John Krasinski
John Krasinski rewrote the script for Blunt but did not ask her to star; she read his draft on a flight and decided she had to do it.
Q 12Emily Blunt took over which magical nanny role, made famous by Julie Andrews in 1964, for a 2018 Disney sequel?
Mary Poppins
Mary Poppins Returns had a cameo written for Julie Andrews, but she turned it down because she felt her presence would take attention away from Blunt.
Q 13Emily Ratajkowski shot to global fame in 2013 after appearing in the music video for which Robin Thicke hit?
Blurred Lines
Q 21Emily Dickinson, who saw only 10 of her nearly 1,800 poems published in her lifetime, lived in which Massachusetts town?
Amherst
Amherst knew her as a local curiosity: neighbours rarely saw the poet at all, and when they did she was usually dressed in white.
Q 22Which actress and singer played the young poet Emily Dickinson across three seasons of an Apple TV+ comedy from 2019?
Hailee Steinfeld
Hailee Steinfeld played her as an aspiring writer in love with her best friend Sue, who is also engaged to Emily's brother.
Q 23Emily VanCamp, Marvel's Sharon Carter, took the lead role of Emily Thorne in which drama that ran from 2011 to 2015?
Revenge
Blurred Lines was one of three music videos she was cast in around then, along with Taio Cruz's Fast Car and Maroon 5's Love Somebody.
Q 14Emily Deschanel played forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan from 2005 to 2017 in which Fox crime series?
Bones
Bones drew on the novels and career of real forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs, and Emily's younger sister is the actress and singer Zooey Deschanel.
Q 15Emily, voiced by Helena Bonham Carter, is the title character of which 2005 Tim Burton stop-motion film?
Corpse Bride
Corpse Bride was the first stop-motion feature Burton directed himself, having only produced The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach.
Q 16Kelly Bishop played Emily, the wealthy estranged mother of Lorelai, in which series set in Stars Hollow, Connecticut?
Gilmore Girls
Gilmore Girls came long after Bishop's stage breakthrough: she won a Tony Award in 1976 for originating the role of Sheila in A Chorus Line.
Q 17Emily Kinney played Beth Greene, a farmer's daughter who sings to lift her group's morale, in which AMC horror drama?
The Walking Dead
The Walking Dead put Kinney's real singing voice to use: she recorded The Parting Glass with co-star Lauren Cohan for the show's soundtrack album.
Q 18Shay Mitchell played swimmer Emily Fields, whose clique falls apart after their leader vanishes, in which teen drama?
Pretty Little Liars
Pretty Little Liars began as a series of novels by Sara Shepard, in which Emily is the jock of the group, and the television version ran for 160 episodes.
Q 19Paget Brewster plays Emily Prentiss, an ambassador's daughter and former Interpol agent, in which CBS crime drama?
Criminal Minds
Criminal Minds makes Prentiss a gifted linguist, the product of a childhood spent following her diplomat mother between postings in the Middle East and Europe.
Q 20Emily, an often-bossy tender engine, belongs to the Steam Team on the Island of Sodor in which children's series?
Thomas & Friends
Thomas & Friends modelled Emily on a real express locomotive, the Stirling Single, nicknamed the eight-footer for its single pair of huge driving wheels.
Revenge brought VanCamp international recognition after years in the casts of the family dramas Everwood and Brothers & Sisters.
Q 24Emily Watson earned an Emmy nomination for which 2019 HBO miniseries, playing a composite of several real scientists?
Chernobyl
Chernobyl cast her as a nuclear scientist who never existed: the character stands in for several real researchers who worked on the disaster.
Q 25Emily Browning won an Australian Film Institute award as Violet Baudelaire in which 2004 film of Lemony Snicket's books?
A Series of Unfortunate Events
A Series of Unfortunate Events left the author Neil Gaiman fascinated by Browning, and she went on to star as Laura Moon in the series of his American Gods.
Q 26Emily Hampshire played Stevie Budd from 2015 to 2020 in which CBC sitcom about a fallen family living in a motel?
Schitt's Creek
Schitt's Creek signed off in style: its sixth and final season swept all seven major comedy categories at the Primetime Emmy Awards.
Q 27Emily Bett Rickards landed her first television credit as hacker Felicity Smoak in which CW superhero series?
Arrow
Arrow signed her as a guest star for a single episode, but the reaction at preview screenings was so warm that she became a series regular.
Q 28Emily Procter played detective Calleigh Duquesne from 2002 to 2012 in which CBS police procedural?
CSI: Miami
CSI: Miami followed her recurring part as White House lawyer Ainsley Hayes in The West Wing, and in 1995 she played a brief love interest of Joey in Friends.
Q 29See Emily Play, a 1967 top 10 single written by frontman Syd Barrett, was an early hit for which English band?
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd lost Barrett within a year: his erratic behaviour began to show during the band's Top of the Pops appearances, and he left in early 1968.
Q 30For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her appears on the 1966 album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme by which duo?
Simon & Garfunkel
Simon & Garfunkel gave the whole vocal to Art, who sings it alone over a 12-string guitar, and it remains a staple of his live sets.