Name Awesome

Helaine

Girls' name

Meaning unconfirmed; recorded in an 1884 name reference

Helaine has been given to 1,794 babies in the U.S. since 1909. 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 1947, with 67 recorded.

Babies named Helaine, 2021

1 in 678,000

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Helaine: meaning, origin, and history

Meaning unconfirmed; recorded in an 1884 name reference

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Helaine means

Helaine is a given name.

The naming story behind Helaine

Charlotte M. Yonge’s 1884 History of Christian Names includes the exact spelling Helaine in its glossary. The entry labels it feminine and points to printed page(s) 68.

The glossary’s abbreviated description reads: “Eng. Gr. light”. This is the historical author’s wording, including its language abbreviations and any proposed interpretation. It is presented as historical evidence, not as a verified modern translation. Victorian classifications and root explanations can differ from later linguistic research.

For Helaine, the current short meaning therefore remains unconfirmed. Establishing its modern etymology requires a current reference that documents the exact form and its relationship to the proposed earlier words.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 1,794 girls were recorded with the name Helaine between 1909 and 2021. Its highest annual count was 67 in 1947; its best national rank was #871 in 1938.

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 Helaine?

Helaine had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2021, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2021
1 in 678,000
5 of 3,389,958 births
Among girls only
1 in 328,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2021
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
469,949 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Helaine 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 2021 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 469,949 children born in 2021 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Helaine. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Helaines were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Helaine was born before 1949 — so the typical Helaine is around 76 today.

Median birth year
1949
About 76 years old
Biggest decade
1940s
26.7% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
0.61%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
897
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1940s — 26.7% of all recorded uses (479).

Is Helaine 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 1947 (67)
Years since peak
78
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
40.3% average annual change
Best rank ever
#871
1938

Spellings of Helaine

Helaine is not the most common spelling — Elaine is, with 69.6% against Helaine's 0.47%.

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 Helaine is used

Across 1910–2025, Helaine was most concentrated in New York — about 1 in 16,667 girls, against 1 in 73,722 across all states with data. It was least common in Pennsylvania (1 in —).

06 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1New York1 in 16,667
  2. 2Massachusetts1 in 100,000
  3. 3New Jersey1 in 100,000
  4. 4California1 in —
  5. 5Illinois1 in —
  6. 6Ohio1 in —
  7. 7Pennsylvania1 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. Helaine has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Helaine around the world

Where Helaine 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.

  • France
    1991–1991
    #2,792
    in 1991
  • South Australia
    1955–1986
    #667
    in 1986

Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Helaine 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
#871
1938
Peak year
1947
67 that year
First recorded
1909
Last recorded
2021
All-time count
1,794
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Helaine

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

HelainaHeloiseEvalineEmalineDelaineHelaynaAvelineYazmineMartineJaylineEvelineHelanaEmelineHelinaAlaineHellenaJenineRoselineHellenHeloisaJazzmineDivineBlaineKarine

Sibling names for Helaine

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 Helaine

Top names of 1947, Helaine's peak yearThe 1940s in fullOther names that peaked in 1938Girls' names starting with H