Wilhelmine

Girls' name

Will + helmet, through Wilhelm

Wilhelmine has been given to 525 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 1896, with 20 recorded.

Babies named Wilhelmine, 2023

1 in 552,000

Wilhelmine over time, 1880–2025

Girls

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Wilhelmine: meaning, origin, and history

Will + helmet, through Wilhelm

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Wilhelmine means

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

Origin, language, and formation

Wilhelmine is used in German.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Wilhelm, Wilhelmina and *Wiljahelmaz.

Pronunciation and spelling

In German, Wilhelmine is pronounced /vɪlhɛlˈmiːnə/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 525 girls were recorded with the name Wilhelmine between 1880 and 2023. Its highest annual count was 20 in 1896; its best national rank was #612 in 1884.

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 Wilhelmine?

Wilhelmine had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2023, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2023: 1 in 552,000; 6 of 3,314,783 births
Among girls only: 1 in 267,000; <0.01% of girls
Rank, 2023: Unranked; Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size: 382,940 kids; Even odds of a second one

Where Wilhelmine 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 2023 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 382,940 children born in 2023 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Wilhelmine. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Wilhelmines were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Wilhelmine was born before 1904 — so the typical Wilhelmine is around 121 today.

Median birth year: 1904; About 121 years old
Biggest decade: 1910s; 27.2% of all use
Born in the last 25 years: 1.1%; Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950: 6; People you could plausibly meet

Choose a decade

1910s — 27.2% of all recorded uses (143).

Is Wilhelmine 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 1896 (20)
Years since peak: 129; Years
Year-to-year steadiness: Volatile; 26.3% average annual change
Best rank ever: #612; 1884

Spellings of Wilhelmine

Wilhelmine is not the most common spelling — Wilhelmina is, with 85.3% against Wilhelmine's 3.4%.

Wilhelmina85.3%13,094
Wilhemina6.2%956
Wilhelmena5.0%769
Wilhelmine3.4%525

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 Wilhelmine is used

Across 1910–2025, Wilhelmine was most concentrated in Ohio — about 1 in — girls, against 1 in 1,495,549 across all states with data.

00 per 100,000

State popularity map

Most concentrated

1Ohio1 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. Wilhelmine has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Wilhelmine around the world

Where Wilhelmine 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
1900–2015
#6,744
in 2015

Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0.

Wilhelmine 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: #612; 1884
Peak year: 1896; 20 that year
First recorded: 1880
Last recorded: 2023
All-time count: 525
Count in 2025: Under 5

Names similar to Wilhelmine

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

Sibling names for Wilhelmine

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

For a sister

Hulda Meta Bess Lulu Maud Maude Golda Lauretta

For a brother

Dewey Grover Garfield Will Gustave Orrin Dorsey Isadore

Explore around Wilhelmine

Top names of 1896, Wilhelmine's peak year The 1890s in full Other names that peaked in 1884 Girls' names starting with W Uncommon German Girl Names William Variations & Nicknames