Olga

101,653 people in America carry this name — ranked #548 of 923.

Its American moment came before the war.

Say it OHL guh

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

OW1 L G AH0 — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 101,653 2020 Census
  • As a surname No not above the reporting threshold

The meaning and origin of Olga

Teutonic in origin, reading literally as “holy”.

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.

Olga name popularity by year

61,789 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1918, with 1,691 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. It has been given less often of late.

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 that fit Olga

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

Better avoided

  • Olga Ashley — runs together
  • Olga Amanda — runs together
  • Olga Amy — runs together

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 Olga was 1918. Names of that age tend to come back once their owners are grandparents.

Is Olga a boy's or a girl's name?

0.2% men
101,464 women

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

The likeliest full names

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.

The same name elsewhere

  • Oleg Russian
  • Olger Danish

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.

The states where Olga is most common

In Texas the name is given 3.6 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Texas ×3.6
  • California ×2.2
  • New York ×2.0
  • Illinois ×1.4
  • New Jersey ×1.3

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.

Who carries it today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 31.9%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 1.8%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 65.0%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 0.7%

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.

Same syllables and stress as Olga

Nothing else in the file ends on the same sound — a rare thing, and useful if you want a first name nobody will echo.

Same rhythm — 2 syllables, stress on the first

Matched on phonemes, not spelling, so the lists follow the ear rather than the page.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

Try it Adult Height

Open Adult Height 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 Teutonic origin