Nelma
Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Nelma has been given to 1,229 babies in the U.S. since 1907. 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 1926, with 50 recorded.
Babies named Nelma, 1960
1 in 593,000
Nelma over time, 1880–2025
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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Nelma?
Nelma had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1960, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 1960
- 1 in 593,000
- 7 of 4,153,934 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 289,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 1960
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 411,328 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Nelma sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 1960 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 411,328 children born in 1960 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Nelma. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Nelmas were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Nelma was born before 1930 — so the typical Nelma is around 95 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1920s
- 33.8% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 33.3%
- Spread across generations
- Recorded since 1950
- 89
- People you could plausibly meet
1920s — 33.8% of all recorded uses (415).
Is Nelma 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 1926 (50)
- Years since peak
- 99
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 26.4% average annual change
Spellings of Nelma
Nelma is not the most common spelling — Emma is, with 25.9% against Nelma's 0.04%.
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 Nelma is used
Across 1910–2025, Nelma was most concentrated in Arkansas — about 1 in 100,000 girls, against 1 in 229,974 across all states with data. It was least common in Tennessee (1 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. Nelma has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Nelma around the world
Where Nelma 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.
- France2014–2014#7,531in 2014
Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0.
Nelma by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Nelma
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Nelma
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.