Humanverse

Helina vs Hellen

American parents have registered 8,353 Hellens since 1880, against 535 Helinas. Hellen is still ahead, with 112 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Helina against Hellen, 1880 to 2025 0 50 100 150 200 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Helina Hellen

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Hellen has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1883 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2002, when Helina had 21 and Hellen had 25.

Side by side

  Helina Hellen
Total US births 5358,353
Most in one year 22195
Babies in 2025 14112
Estimated living today 5303,900
Median age today 1831
Peak year 20051924
Best rank 5,600th girls508th girls
Rank in 2025 7,491st1,796th
First recorded 19731883
Girls / boys 535 / 08,353 / 0

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Hellens alive today are over 31; half the Helinas are over 18. That is 13 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Helina Hellen
France 33565
England and Wales 5113

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Helina and Hellen.