Nelson
Nelson is a boy's name that peaked in 1959, when it was the 244th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 824th. About 50,000 Nelsons are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 44.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Nelson boys named Nelson
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 80,140
- Estimated living today
- 50,000
- Median age today
- 44
- Peak year
- 1959
- Best rank
- 244th
- Rank in 2025
- 824th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 431 / 79,709
How old the living Nelsons are
born that year still alive today
Of the 80,140 babies given the name since 1880, about 50,000 are alive — 62 in every hundred. Roughly 7,300 of them are children and 12,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1981 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 a surname
From Middle English.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Nelsons
- Nelson Mandela (1918–2013)President of South Africa and anti-apartheid activist
- Nelson Rockefeller (1908–1979)Vice President of the United States from 1974 to 1977
- Nelson Piquet (born 1952)Brazilian racing driver
- Nélson Semedo (born 1993)Portuguese footballer
- Nelson Piquet Jr. (born 1985)Brazilian racing driver
- Nélson Luís Kerchner (born 1962)Brazilian association football player
- Nelson Valdez (born 1983)Paraguayan footballer
- Nelson Évora (born 1984)Ivory Coast-born Portuguese triple jumper
People named Nelson with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Nelson is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Nelson is most concentrated in Hawaii (3.1×), New York (2.2×), Virginia (1.8×), Maine (1.8×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1959
The most popular boys’ names the year Nelson peaked:
Nelson elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France boys | Nelson | 8,310 | 272nd |
| England and Wales boys | Nelson | 763 | 801st |
| Belgium boys | Nelson | 580 | 400th |
| Switzerland boys | Nelson | 355 | 268th |
| Ireland boys | Nelson | 30 | 375th |
| Scotland boys | Nelson | 16 | 544th |
| Poland boys | Nelson | 10 birth registrations | 404th |
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.
Nelson: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | Nelson | 141 | 0.011% | 404th |
| French boys | Switzerland | Nelson | 199 | 0.046% | 122nd |
| Italian boys | Switzerland | Nelson | 14 | 0.021% | 100th |
| Romansh boys | Switzerland | Nelson | 1 | 0.027% | 10th |
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, Nelson is most concentrated in Geneva, where 0.04% of children were given it – 44 of them.
Nelson: rank by region
In 2025, Nelson was given 5 times or more in 2 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Nelson | 714 | 7 |
| Wallonia | Nelson | 394 | 6 |
In 2023, Nelson was given 2 times or more in 1 region of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pomorskie | Nelson | 237 | 2 |
In 2024, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Nelson appears in the lists for Brussels-Capital Region (257th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, 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.
Nelson by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 4 | 580th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Nelson 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland boys | Nelson | 98 | 163 |
A count of people on a register – 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 Nelson lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 2,745 men called Nelson were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Men: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Nelson | 219 | 0.411 | 266 |
| Palmas, Las | Nelson | 220 | 0.378 | 289 |
| Ourense | Nelson | 37 | 0.252 | 336 |
| Pontevedra | Nelson | 86 | 0.188 | 402 |
| Araba/Álava | Nelson | 29 | 0.172 | 487 |
| León | Nelson | 31 | 0.142 | 510 |
Listed in 49 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 3 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
Nelson 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.