The 200 Most Popular Emoji And What They Mean

Emoji, the little icons and characters that you send and receive every day, fall under the jurisdiction of the Unicode Consortium. The Consortium is the organization responsible for maintaining Unicode, a digital standard for text that also includes the nearly 4,000 Emoji many of our devices can utilize. The Consortium reported that in 2021, 92% of the world used Emoji in some way shape or form when communicating online. With such wide usage across pretty much every modern device capable of sending a message online, it bears asking the question: what's the most used Emoji? And, perhaps more interestingly, which Emoji is at the bottom of the list?

The most used Emoji isn't all that surprising, and there's a good chance that you received or sent it today. It's the Tears of Joy Emoji, according to Unicode, which says that it accounted for 5% of every Emoji sent in 2021. While 5% may not seem like much, it represents a truly massive number of Emoji when you consider how many are sent each day.

The Emoji in last place isn't used very much mostly because of its relative obscurity. The flag of Guadaloupe, a region belonging to France in the Caribbean, ranks at 1,547th place. The flags of the United States and Brazil trend toward top the list of popular flag Emoji, ranking in at 236th place and 406th place respectively making them the two most commonly deployed flag Emoji.

The bottom of the list is occupied almost entirely by flags of different nations and regions. Apart from the more location-specific options, the "man factory worker" Emoji takes 1,475th place and the sled Emoji clocks in at 1,379th place. Between the obscure localities at the bottom of the list and the near-universal symbols of emotion at the top of the list, the middle of the pack consists of a mishmash of symbols, animals, objects, and food. For example, the dolphin Emoji sits at number 523, right next to the cooked rice Emoji at 524.

With seemingly every new phone update, you'll likely get a new batch of Emoji to play around with. Where do the new symbols and characters come from? On the outside, the process can seem a little random or opaque, but every Emoji inclusion is the result of careful examination regarding its meaning. The Unicode Consortium has seven criteria that it considers for inducting a new character to your phone's keyboard. Those criteria are:

1. A new Emoji must have "multiple meanings." If it's too obscure or too specific, it might not make the cut.
2. The ability to be used in a sequence of other Emoji. If it's too inordinate to use, then it won't work.
3. The Emoji has to "break new ground."
4. The new Emoji needs to be "distinctive" and stand out in the hundreds of other existing Emoji.
5. It needs to reach a certain usage level.
6. Unicode will judge its "completeness" and ascertain whether or not the new Emoji will make other sets of characters more complete, for example, more flags of different countries or regions.
7. The compatibility with different platforms is checked. An Emoji that only displays well on X (formerly known as Twitter) and looks bad on Facebook or WhatsApp won't be a success.

Editor's note: Some of the Emoji in the table below may appear incorrect depending on which browser or OS you use to view this content. The "Black Heart Suit" in Row 20, for example, appears as a Red Heart on Android OS.