Helene
Helene is a girl's name that peaked in 1918, when it was the 235th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 3,577th. About 13,000 Helenes are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 69.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Helene
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 33,334
- Estimated living today
- 13,000
- Median age today
- 69
- Peak year
- 1918
- Best rank
- 235th
- Rank in 2025
- 3,577th
- First recorded
- 1880
How old the living Helenes are
born that year still alive today
Of the 33,334 babies given the name since 1880, about 13,000 are alive — 40 in every hundred. Roughly 610 of them are children and 8,200 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1956 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 Ancient Greek
From French Hélène and from German Helene.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Helenes
- Hélène Cixous (born 1937)French philosopher and writer
- Helene Fischer (born 1984)German singer
- Helene Schjerfbeck (1862–1946)swedish-speaking painter of Finland
- Helene Weigel (1900–1971)German actress and artistic director
- Hélène Carrère d'Encausse (1929–2023)French historian and politician
- Hélène Grimaud (born 1969)French pianist
- Helene Ahrweiler (1926–2026)Greek/French Byzantinist
- Princess Hélène of Orléans (1871–1951)Princess of France
People named Helene with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Helene is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Helene is most concentrated in New York (4.0×), Pennsylvania (2.8×), New Jersey (2.6×), Hawaii (2.5×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1918
The most popular girls’ names the year Helene peaked:
Helene elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France girls | Hélène +1 spelling | 282,065 | 22nd |
| Norway girls | Helene | 11,145 | 7th |
| Belgium girls | Hélène +1 spelling | 1,359 | 114th |
| Denmark girls | Helene | 501 | 47th |
| Switzerland girls | Hélène +1 spelling | 302 | 374th |
| France boys | Hélène | 140 | 1,777th |
| England and Wales girls | Helene | 132 | 1,168th |
| Ireland girls | Helene | 39 | 265th |
| Poland girls | Helene +1 spelling | 18 birth registrations | 548th |
| Scotland girls | Helene | 9 | 497th |
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.
Helene: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Helene | 96 | 0.008% | 360th |
| German girls | Switzerland | Hélène | 25 | 0.002% | 874th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Hélène | 154 | 0.035% | 143rd |
| French girls | Switzerland | Helene | 19 | 0.004% | 240th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Hélène | 6 | 0.009% | 156th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Helene | 2 | 0.003% | 164th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Helene is most concentrated in Fribourg, where 0.04% of children were given it – 28 of them.
Helene: rank by region
In 2025, Helene was given 5 times or more in 2 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Hélène | 656 | 7 |
| Wallonia | Hélène | 264 | 10 |
In 2021, Helene was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Helene | 8 | 1 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Helene appears in the lists for Province of Liège (157th) and Province of West Flanders (186th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names – 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.
Helene by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 223 | 88th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Helene 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 | Hélène | 1,585 | 5,707 |
| Finland girls | Helene +5 spellings | 331 | 1,817 |
| the Netherlands boys | Hélène | — | 201 |
Among girls in Finland this is mostly a middle name: of the 1,817 who carry it, 331 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 Helene lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 675 women called Helene 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gipuzkoa | Helene | 184 | 0.491 | 302 |
| Bizkaia | Helene | 109 | 0.181 | 532 |
| Araba/Álava | Helene | 26 | 0.150 | 649 |
| Navarra | Helene | 21 | 0.061 | 1,143 |
| Balears, Illes | Helene | 23 | 0.037 | 1,613 |
| Palmas, Las | Helene | 18 | 0.031 | 2,481 |
Listed in 20 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 32 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
Helene 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.