Nela vs Nelle

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Nela Nelle

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 120 years in which either name was published, Nelle for 106 years and Nela for 14 years. The lead changed hands 6 times.

• 1880–1986 Nelle ahead
• 1997–2000 Nela ahead
• 2001 Nelle ahead
• 2003–2011 Nela ahead
• 2012 Nelle ahead
• 2013–2015 Nela ahead
• 2016–2025 Nelle ahead

Side by side

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 Nelles alive today are over 16; half the Nelas are over 12. That is 4 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.

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

• Nela vs Nellie
• Nela vs Nelson
• Nela vs Nell
• Nela vs Nelda
• Nela vs Nelly
• Nelle vs Nellie
• Nelle vs Nelson
• Nelle vs Nell