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Hilma

Girls' name

Possibly will + helmet, through Wilhelmina

Hilma has been given to 2,999 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 1915, with 105 recorded.

Babies named Hilma, 1971

1 in 686,000

Hilma over time, 1880–2025

Girls
05010015018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Hilma: meaning, origin, and history

Possibly will + helmet, through Wilhelmina

Germanic languages

What Hilma means

Hilma belongs to the name family reached through Hilma → Wilhelmina → Wilhelmina → Wilhelm → *Wiljahelmaz. Its meaning is “will + helmet”.

Dictionary etymologyReferences, data & attribution

Used in early 19th-century Scandinavian literature, probably as a variant of Wilhelmina.

Excerpt from Wiktionary: Hilma (English) · CC BY-SA 4.0

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Origin, language, and formation

Hilma is used in English, Danish, Faroese, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish. Its origins include Germanic languages.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Wilhelmina, Wilhelm and *Wiljahelmaz.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Finnish, Hilma is pronounced /ˈhilmɑ/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 2,999 girls were recorded with the name Hilma between 1880 and 1971. Its highest annual count was 105 in 1915; its best national rank was #344 in 1885.

How common is Hilma?

Hilma had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1971, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1971
1 in 686,000
5 of 3,432,187 births
Among girls only
1 in 333,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 1971
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
475,803 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Hilma 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 1971 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 475,803 children born in 1971 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Hilma. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Hilmas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Hilma was born before 1916 — so the typical Hilma is around 109 today.

Median birth year
1916
About 109 years old
Biggest decade
1910s
24.8% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
4.9%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
106
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1910s — 24.8% of all recorded uses (743).

Is Hilma 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 1915 (105)
Years since peak
110
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
42.1% average annual change
Best rank ever
#344
1885

Spellings of Hilma

Hilma is not the most common spelling — Thelma is, with 18.7% against Hilma's 0.25%.

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 Hilma is used

Across 1910–2025, Hilma was most concentrated in Minnesota — about 1 in 25,000 girls, against 1 in 223,044 across all states with data. It was least common in Texas (1 in —).

04 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Minnesota1 in 25,000
  2. 2North Dakota1 in 25,000
  3. 3Iowa1 in 100,000
  4. 4Maine1 in 100,000
  5. 5Michigan1 in 100,000
  6. 6Wisconsin1 in 100,000
  7. 7Alabama1 in —
  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. Hilma has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Hilma around the world

Where Hilma 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
    1994–2025
    #2,638
    in 2025
  • South Australia
    1975–1975
    #675
    in 1975

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.

Notable people named Hilma

People whose public names include Hilma, 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.

Hilma 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
#344
1885
Peak year
1915
105 that year
First recorded
1880
Last recorded
1971
All-time count
2,999
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Hilma

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

PalmaVilmaZulmaHildeHilaSalmaHilariaHilaryHildredZelmaHildaNelmaHildurHildegardSelmaDelmaTelmaHillaryHilalHilianaHildyIlmaElmaBelma

Names with a curve like Hilma

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

LudieEthylClydeZulaTennieSudieMaybellOrphaMadieCordiePearleOcie

Sibling names for Hilma

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 Hilma

Top names of 1915, Hilma's peak yearThe 1910s in fullOther names that peaked in 1885Girls' names starting with HArtist Names