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Helmut

Boys' name

Possibly helmet or healthy, whole

Helmut has been given to 450 babies in the U.S. since 1913. 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 1960, with 20 recorded.

Babies named Helmut, 1978

1 in 635,000

Helmut over time, 1880–2025

Boys
0510152018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Helmut: meaning, origin, and history

Possibly helmet or healthy, whole

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Helmut means

Helmut may mean “helmet or healthy, whole”.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Helmut is used in German and Germanic.

Another recorded pronunciation is /ˈhɛl.muːt/ for Helmut.

Origin, language, and formation

Helmut is used in German.

Pronunciation and spelling

In German, Helmut is pronounced /ˈhɛlmuːt/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 450 boys were recorded with the name Helmut between 1913 and 1978. Its highest annual count was 20 in 1960; its best national rank was #1,833 in 1960.

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 Helmut?

Helmut had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1978, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1978
1 in 635,000
5 of 3,173,639 births
Among boys only
1 in 328,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 1978
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
439,961 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Helmut sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 1978 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 439,961 children born in 1978 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Helmut. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Helmuts were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Helmut was born before 1956 — so the typical Helmut is around 69 today.

Median birth year
1956
About 69 years old
Biggest decade
1960s
30.4% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
55.3%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
262
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1960s — 30.4% of all recorded uses (137).

Is Helmut 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 1960 (20)
Years since peak
65
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
22.8% average annual change
Best rank ever
#1,833
1960

Spellings of Helmut

Helmut is not the most common spelling — Helmer is, with 35.0% against Helmut's 18.9%.

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 Helmut is used

Across 1910–2025, Helmut was most concentrated in Illinois — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 874,333 across all states with data. It was least common in New York (1 in —).

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Illinois1 in —
  2. 2New York1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys 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. Helmut has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Helmut around the world

Where Helmut 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
    1903–1961
    #1,573
    in 1961
  • South Australia
    1949–1969
    #510
    in 1969

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.

Helmut by the numbers

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

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#1,833
1960
Peak year
1960
20 that year
First recorded
1913
Last recorded
1978
All-time count
450
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Helmut

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

HeliosHelioHelixHelmerHelderHelmuthHelamanHeltonHelenHelgeHeliodoroHeladioHelmarHeliusHelalHeloUmutHeliHelonHelam

Sibling names for Helmut

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 Helmut

Top names of 1960, Helmut's peak yearThe 1960s in fullOther names that peaked in 1960Boys' names starting with HUncommon German Boy Names