Name Awesome

Elna

#10,333 in 2025Girls' name

To shine, warm, smoulder, burn, through Elina

Elna has been given to 4,478 babies in the U.S. since 1883. In 2025 it ranked #10,333 of 17,293 girls’ names in use. Its peak year was 1917, with 173 recorded.

Babies named Elna, 2025

1 in 368,000

Elna over time, 1880–2025

Girls
05010015020018801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Elna: meaning, origin, and history

To shine, warm, smoulder, burn, through Elina

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Elna means

Elna belongs to the name family reached through Elna → Elina → Helena → Helena → Ἑλένη. Its meaning is “to shine, warm, smoulder, burn”.

Origin, language, and formation

Elna is used in Danish, Faroese, Finnish and Swedish.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Elin, Helena, Elina and Ἑλένη.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Finnish, Elna is pronounced /ˈelnɑ/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 4,478 girls were recorded with the name Elna between 1883 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 173 in 1917; its best national rank was #504 in 1917.

Over 5 years its rank fell, from #8,097 in 2020 to #10,333 in 2025. Over 10 years its rank rose, from #17,228 in 2015 to #10,333 in 2025.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Elna?

Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 368,000
9 of 3,315,165 births
Among girls only
1 in 179,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2025
#10,333
of 17,293 girls’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
255,323 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Elna sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2025 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 255,323 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Elna. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Elnas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Elna was born before 1924 — so the typical Elna is around 101 today.

Median birth year
1924
About 101 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
26.1% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
2.3%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
470
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1920s — 26.1% of all recorded uses (1,167).

Is Elna rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
−577
Places dropped
Rank vs 5 years ago
−2,236
Places dropped
Rank vs 10 years ago
+6,895
Places climbed
Births vs 10 years ago
1.80×
More babies than then
Share of its own peak
5.2%
Peak was 1917 (173)
Years since peak
108
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
23.7% average annual change
Best rank ever
#504
1917

Spellings of Elna

Elna is not the most common spelling — Anna is, with 13.2% against Elna's 0.06%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Elna is used

Across 1910–2025, Elna was most concentrated in Minnesota — about 1 in 16,667 girls, against 1 in 92,062 across all states with data. It was least common in Washington (1 in —).

06 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Minnesota1 in 16,667
  2. 2Alabama1 in 20,000
  3. 3Nebraska1 in 20,000
  4. 4Iowa1 in 25,000
  5. 5North Dakota1 in 25,000
  6. 6Texas1 in 33,333
  7. 7Utah1 in 33,333
  8. 8Michigan1 in 50,000

Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Elna has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Elna around the world

Where Elna ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • England & Wales
    2013–2025
    #4,201
    in 2025
  • France
    1984–2025
    #5,279
    in 2025
  • Norway
    1880–2024
    #478
    in 2024
  • South Australia
    1947–2010
    #801
    in 2010

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Norway and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. SSB, CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Notable people named Elna

People whose public names include Elna, backed by Wikidata given-name records and ordered by linked Wikimedia pages. The name may be a middle name.

People data from Wikidata (CC0). Fame is measured, not judged — the order reflects how widely each person is documented, not the U.S. birth records popularity this page is otherwise about.

Elna in other languages

Cross-language forms and variants of Elna. Linked forms have their own page here.

ElanaElena

Variant forms from Wikidata (CC0). Most are used mainly outside the United States; U.S. birth records statistics cover US usage only.

Elna by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
#10,333
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
Down 2,236
Best rank ever
#504
1917
Peak year
1917
173 that year
First recorded
1883
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
4,478
Count in 2025
9

Names similar to Elna

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

ElnoraElnorElnerElnoreElnazWilnaVelnaElnitaElnoriaAlnaZelnaDelnaElnetaRalnaJalnaOlnaElnedaElnaraMelnaElnorah

Names with a curve like Elna

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Elna, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

VergieMyrticeEthelynOdellIdellOletaAlmedaJohnieEldoraElveraRosamondMarvel

Sibling names for Elna

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Elna

Top names of 1917, Elna's peak yearThe 1910s in fullOther names that peaked in 1917Girls' names starting with E