Helen

280,357 people in America carry this name — ranked #190 of 923.

Carried mostly by the Greatest Generation.

Say it HEH luhn

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

HH EH1 L AH0 N — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 280,357 2020 Census
  • Rank #190 Common

The meaning and origin of Helen

Greek in origin, reading literally as “light”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

Helen name popularity by year

1,023,646 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1918, with 36,228 of them.

80 90 00 10 20s 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 00 10 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 1920s.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

Middle names for Helen

Two syllables sit with almost anything — the join matters more than the length.

Better avoided

  • Helen Nancy — runs together
  • Helen Nicole — runs together
  • Helen Hannah — same opening

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

A name from before the war

The year most children were called Helen was 1918. Names of that age tend to come back once their owners are grandparents.

Is Helen used for boys or for girls?

0.1% men
280,032 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

Who carries it today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 72.4%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 10.9%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 7.1%
  • Two or more races — 1.8%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 7.2%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 0.6%

Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.

Full names people carry

The census counts first names and surnames separately and never together, so these are estimates: how often the two halves would meet if they paired at random. They do not — names cluster by community — so read them as an order of magnitude, not a headcount.

Where the name Helen is most common in the US

In the District of Columbia the name is given 2.3 times as often as it is across the country.

  • the District of Columbia ×2.3
  • Mississippi ×1.6
  • Alaska ×1.6
  • New York ×1.5
  • South Carolina ×1.5

Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.

This name in other languages

  • Leno Esth
  • Lena Alb.|Lett
  • Jela Serv
  • Nelly English
  • Ljena Alb
  • Lenka Slov
  • Lenia Alb
  • Ilona Hungarian
  • Ellin Welsh
  • Ellen English
  • Elena Italian
  • Elene
  • Leonor Spanish
  • Lenore German

Forms of one name traced to the same root. Spellings are as the glossary printed them, so some look older than the versions in use today.

Try it Name Matcher

Enter a surname and hear which first names sit well with it.

The matcher is confident about clashes — rhymes, doubled sounds, colliding stresses — because those are facts about the phonemes. Ordering the names that pass is a set of rules, not a verdict on beauty.

Open Name Matcher on its own page

Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
  • Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers
Other names of Greek origin