Name Awesome

Velda

Girls' name

Possibly power, authority

Velda has been given to 7,559 babies in the U.S. since 1895. 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 1920, with 191 recorded.

Babies named Velda, 2020

1 in 668,000

Velda over time, 1880–2025

Girls
05010015020018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Velda: meaning, origin, and history

Possibly power, authority

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Velda means

Velda may mean “power, authority”.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Velda is used in English.

Another recorded pronunciation is /ˈvɛl.də/ for Velda.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 7,559 girls were recorded with the name Velda between 1895 and 2020. Its highest annual count was 191 in 1920; its best national rank was #474 in 1914.

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 Velda?

Velda had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2020, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2020
1 in 668,000
5 of 3,342,313 births
Among girls only
1 in 323,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2020
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
463,344 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Velda 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 2020 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 463,344 children born in 2020 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Velda. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Veldas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Velda was born before 1934 — so the typical Velda is around 91 today.

Median birth year
1934
About 91 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
22.2% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
0.29%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
2,149
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1920s — 22.2% of all recorded uses (1,678).

Is Velda 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 1920 (191)
Years since peak
105
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
29.9% average annual change
Best rank ever
#474
1914

Spellings of Velda

Velda is not the most common spelling — Ella is, with 22.3% against Velda's 0.48%.

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 Velda is used

Across 1910–2025, Velda was most concentrated in Kansas — about 1 in 4,000 girls, against 1 in 32,488 across all states with data. It was least common in New York (1 in —).

025 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Kansas1 in 4,000
  2. 2Oklahoma1 in 5,882
  3. 3Arkansas1 in 7,143
  4. 4Iowa1 in 7,143
  5. 5Nebraska1 in 7,692
  6. 6Missouri1 in 9,091
  7. 7South Dakota1 in 11,111
  8. 8Idaho1 in 16,667

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. Velda has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Velda around the world

Where Velda 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.

  • South Australia
    1948–1983
    #686
    in 1983

Popularity data from Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Velda 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
#474
1914
Peak year
1920
191 that year
First recorded
1895
Last recorded
2020
All-time count
7,559
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Velda

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

VeliaVellaGoldaVelvetVelvaImeldaZeldaEldaNeldaVelmaTildaVelaGildaHuldaWildaVeltaNildaMathildaVeloraHildaAldaGriseldaVelinaVelna

Names with a curve like Velda

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

VerniceNorineRethaGermaineDelphineLavonRetaPearlineFreidaRowenaLorineGeorge

Sibling names for Velda

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 Velda

Top names of 1920, Velda's peak yearThe 1920s in fullOther names that peaked in 1914Girls' names starting with V