Nelva
Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Nelva has been given to 1,139 babies in the U.S. since 1889. 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 1935, with 44 recorded.
Babies named Nelva, 1976
1 in 379,000
Nelva 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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.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 Nelva?
Nelva had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1976, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 1976
- 1 in 379,000
- 8 of 3,034,007 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 183,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 1976
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 262,878 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Nelva sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 1976 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 262,878 children born in 1976 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Nelva. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Nelvas were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Nelva was born before 1935 — so the typical Nelva is around 90 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1930s
- 28.8% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 15.5%
- Spread across generations
- Recorded since 1950
- 206
- People you could plausibly meet
1930s — 28.8% of all recorded uses (328).
Is Nelva 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 1935 (44)
- Years since peak
- 90
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 27.3% average annual change
Spellings of Nelva
Nelva is not the most common spelling — Ella is, with 21.2% against Nelva's 0.07%.
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 Nelva is used
Across 1910–2025, Nelva was most concentrated in Texas — about 1 in 100,000 girls, against 1 in 113,423 across all states with data. It was least common in Oklahoma (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. Nelva has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Nelva around the world
Where Nelva 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.
- France2000–2000#4,390in 2000
- South Australia1947–1947#366in 1947
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.
Nelva by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Nelva
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Nelva
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.