Hildegarde vs Hilma
American parents have registered 2,999 Hilmas since 1880, against 2,326 Hildegardes. Neither name reached five babies in 2025.
Babies given each name, 1880–2025
Hildegarde Hilma
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
Of the 83 years in which either name was published, Hilma for 59 years and Hildegarde for 24 years. The lead changed hands 22 times.
- 1880–1927 Hilma ahead, apart from 3 short spells
- 1928–1944 Hildegarde ahead, apart from one short spell
- 1947–1953 Hilma ahead
16 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.
Side by side
| Hildegarde | Hilma | |
|---|---|---|
| Total US births | 2,326 | 2,999 |
| Most in one year | 124 | 105 |
| Babies in 2025 | under 5 | under 5 |
| Estimated living today | 230 | 250 |
| Median age today | 82 | 80 |
| Peak year | 1915 | 1915 |
| Best rank | 583rd girls | 644th girls |
| Rank in 2025 | unranked | unranked |
| First recorded | 1885 | 1880 |
| Girls / boys | 2,326 / 0 | 2,999 / 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 Hildegardes alive today are over 82; half the Hilmas are over 80. That is 2 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.
Where each one is strongest
- Hildegarde Wisconsin (15.2×), Minnesota (4.7×), New York (2.9×)
- Hilma North Dakota (17.3×), Minnesota (16.6×), Michigan (4.7×)
How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.
Both names abroad
Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.
| Country | Hildegarde | Hilma |
|---|---|---|
| France | 1,265 | 185 |
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: Hildegarde and Hilma.