Cornelia
The girl's name Cornelia has been in the national records since 1880, with 22,102 births to its name. In 2025 it ranked 3,130th. About 7,100 Cornelias are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 66.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Cornelia boys named Cornelia
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 22,102
- Estimated living today
- 7,100
- Median age today
- 66
- Peak year
- 1921
- Best rank
- 300th
- Rank in 2025
- 3,130th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 22,076 / 26
How old the living Cornelias are
born that year still alive today
Of the 22,102 babies given the name since 1880, about 7,100 are alive — 32 in every hundred. Roughly 600 of them are children and 3,800 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1959 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Latin
From Latin Cornēlia, name of a famous Roman matron, feminine form of the gens name Cornelius; in continental Europe, also a feminine form of the saint's name Cornelius.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Cornelias
- Cornelia Funke (born 1958)German author
- Cornelia Jakobs (born 1992)Swedish singer and songwriter
- Cornelia Sorabji (1866–1954)Indian barrister, writer, and social reformer; first female graduate from Bombay University, first woman to study law at Oxford University; first Indian national to study at a British university
- Cornelia Froboess (born 1943)German actress
- Cornelia Hütter (born 1992)Austrian alpine skier
- Cornelia Oschkenat (born 1961)German sprinter and hurdler
- Cornelia Fort (1919–1943)American aviator
- Cornelia Parker (born 1956)British artist
People named Cornelia with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Cornelia is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Cornelia is most concentrated in South Carolina (4.3×), Alabama (3.1×), North Carolina (3.1×), Mississippi (3.0×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1921
The most popular girls’ names the year Cornelia peaked:
Cornelia elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sweden girls | Cornelia | 4,822 | 48th |
| Austria girls | Cornelia | 4,724 | 24th |
| Norway girls | Cornelia | 1,464 | 90th |
| France girls | Cornelia +1 spelling | 580 | 747th |
| England and Wales girls | Cornelia | 206 | 1,893rd |
| Poland girls | Cornelia | 154 birth registrations | 264th |
| Ireland girls | Cornelia | 39 | 391st |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Cornelia: rank by region
In 2022, Cornelia was given 2 times or more in 2 regions of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Łódzkie | Cornelia | 197 | 2 |
| Pomorskie | Cornelia | 225 | 2 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Cornelia by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 4 | 551st |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Cornelia among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands girls | Cornelia | 105,905 | 295,074 |
| the Netherlands boys | Cornelia | 16 | 3,224 |
| Finland girls | Cornelia | 72 | 208 |
Among boys in the Netherlands this is mostly a middle name: of the 3,224 who carry it, 16 go by it.
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Cornelia lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 1,473 women called Cornelia were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Castellón/Castelló | Cornelia | 89 | 0.282 | 365 |
| Lleida | Cornelia | 42 | 0.189 | 511 |
| Cuenca | Cornelia | 14 | 0.142 | 581 |
| Huelva | Cornelia | 38 | 0.140 | 594 |
| Rioja, La | Cornelia | 20 | 0.121 | 724 |
| Almería | Cornelia | 45 | 0.119 | 702 |
Listed in 41 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 11 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Cornelia against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.