Name Awesome

Ethelyn

Girls' name

Diminutive of Ethel

Ethelyn has been given to 4,450 babies in the U.S. since 1880. 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 1920, with 168 recorded.

Babies named Ethelyn, 2014

1 in 741,000

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Ethelyn: meaning, origin, and history

Diminutive of Ethel

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Ethelyn means

Ethelyn is a diminutive of Ethel.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Ethelyn is used in English.

Another recorded pronunciation is /ˈɛθ.ə.lɪn/ for Ethelyn.

Meaning behind the documented name family

The name developed through Ethelyn → Ethel. The family’s meaning is “noble”, recorded in English with the source elements æþele.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Ethel.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 4,450 girls were recorded with the name Ethelyn between 1880 and 2014. Its highest annual count was 168 in 1920; its best national rank was #456 in 1880.

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 Ethelyn?

Ethelyn had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2014, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2014
1 in 741,000
5 of 3,706,812 births
Among girls only
1 in 357,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2014
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
513,874 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Ethelyn 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 2014 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 513,874 children born in 2014 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Ethelyn. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Ethelyns were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Ethelyn was born before 1922 — so the typical Ethelyn is around 103 today.

Median birth year
1922
About 103 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
28.1% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
0.11%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
348
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1920s — 28.1% of all recorded uses (1,250).

Is Ethelyn 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 1920 (168)
Years since peak
105
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
30.3% average annual change
Best rank ever
#456
1880

Spellings of Ethelyn

Ethelyn is not the most common spelling — Evelyn is, with 68.5% against Ethelyn's 0.48%.

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 Ethelyn is used

Across 1910–2025, Ethelyn was most concentrated in Maine — about 1 in 6,667 girls, against 1 in 97,807 across all states with data. It was least common in Virginia (1 in —).

015 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Maine1 in 6,667
  2. 2South Dakota1 in 25,000
  3. 3Louisiana1 in 33,333
  4. 4Michigan1 in 33,333
  5. 5Iowa1 in 50,000
  6. 6Minnesota1 in 50,000
  7. 7New York1 in 50,000
  8. 8Wisconsin1 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. Ethelyn has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Notable people named Ethelyn

People whose public names include Ethelyn, 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.

Ethelyn in other languages

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

EthelEtelEtela

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

Ethelyn 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
#456
1880
Peak year
1920
168 that year
First recorded
1880
Last recorded
2014
All-time count
4,450
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Ethelyn

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

EthlynJazzlynKathlynJerilynShaelynMarylynKarolynAddalynJacelynLakelynAngelynKaytlynAddelynJesslynEmmalynSherlynJosslynJosalynShaylynJadelynCarlynAddilynJaslynOaklyn

Names with a curve like Ethelyn

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

AlmedaVergieElnaMyrticeAldaEstellOdellClaudieIdellRosamondJohnieEldora

Sibling names for Ethelyn

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 Ethelyn

Top names of 1920, Ethelyn's peak yearThe 1920s in fullOther names that peaked in 1880Girls' names starting with E