Name Awesome

Erlene

Girls' name

Meaning and linguistic origin unconfirmed

Erlene has been given to 2,332 babies in the U.S. since 1903. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1930, with 74 recorded.

Babies named Erlene, 1988

1 in 462,000

Erlene over time, 1880–2025

Girls
02040608018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Erlene: meaning, origin, and history

Meaning and linguistic origin unconfirmed

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Erlene means

Erlene is a given name.

The naming story behind Erlene

Wikidata records Erlene as a female given name. The entity identifier is Q140645886, and the classification was checked on 2026-10-20. The spelling matches a source label or alias exactly, without removing accents or linking it to a name merely because the letters look similar.

A database classification is different from an etymological explanation, so those questions remain open in the short meaning.

A modern root explanation needs an additional naming or linguistic reference.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 2,332 girls were recorded with the name Erlene between 1903 and 1988. Its highest annual count was 74 in 1930; its best national rank was #793 in 1933.

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.

How common is Erlene?

Erlene had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1988, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1988
1 in 462,000
8 of 3,694,212 births
Among girls only
1 in 223,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 1988
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
320,080 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Erlene 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 1988 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 320,080 children born in 1988 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Erlene. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Erlenes were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Erlene was born before 1934 — so the typical Erlene is around 91 today.

Median birth year
1934
About 91 years old
Biggest decade
1930s
24.8% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
5.1%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
463
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1930s — 24.8% of all recorded uses (578).

Is Erlene 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
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 1930 (74)
Years since peak
95
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
32.8% average annual change
Best rank ever
#793
1933

Spellings of Erlene

Erlene is not the most common spelling — Irene is, with 23.8% against Erlene's 0.16%.

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 Erlene is used

Across 1910–2025, Erlene was most concentrated in Mississippi — about 1 in 50,000 girls, against 1 in 230,473 across all states with data. It was least common in Virginia (1 in —).

02 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Mississippi1 in 50,000
  2. 2Vermont1 in 50,000
  3. 3Alabama1 in 100,000
  4. 4Georgia1 in 100,000
  5. 5Maine1 in 100,000
  6. 6North Carolina1 in 100,000
  7. 7Tennessee1 in 100,000
  8. 8California1 in —

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. Erlene has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Erlene in other languages

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

ErlineEarleneErlena

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

Erlene by the numbers

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

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#793
1933
Peak year
1930
74 that year
First recorded
1903
Last recorded
1988
All-time count
2,332
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Erlene

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

AileneEileneCeleneSereneErlineRaeleneMyleneJheneJaileneJasleneAbileneJazleneRayleneAlleneEleneAdeleneEugeneMayleneSeleneJoeleneErlindaNadeneHarleneAylene

Names with a curve like Erlene

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

MardellEloisInellRuthaWilleneMernaLoyceVerdellBernardineFlorettaArlettaEarlean

Sibling names for Erlene

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 Erlene

Top names of 1930, Erlene's peak yearThe 1930s in fullOther names that peaked in 1933Girls' names starting with E