Elsa
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in French: Short form of Elisabeth, from Hebrew Elisheva, 'my God is an oath'
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/elsa/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Elsa is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Argentina than in any other country. In Angola it is the 94th most common given name.
- ARArgentina≈1 in 357(inferred from the name graph)
- ECEcuador1 in 527
- PEPeru≈1 in 544
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Elsa itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Argentina (inferred from the name graph)
- #736 (measured from records)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 390 (measured from records)
- 1 in 206 (inferred from the name graph)
≈130,000 people, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Sweden
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Elza in BR Brazil.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Short form of Elisabeth, from Hebrew Elisheva, 'my God is an oath'.
Sources 1
- Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Attested across 10 languages in the etymology graph.
How Elsa is read(measured from records)
Elsa is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- Spanish65%
- English14%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Elsa in English.
- French6.6%
Short form of Elisabeth, from Hebrew Elisheva, 'my God is an oath'.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Diminutif d’Élisabeth, origine hébraïque, « Dieu est plénitude ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Diminutif d’Élisabeth, « Dieu est serment ».
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Elsa counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AR Argentina | #130 | ≈130,000 est. | ≈1 in 357 | 36 | Elsa | 100 |
| BR Brazil | #204 | 111,087as Elza | 1 in 1.9K | 142K | Elza | 128 |
| PH Philippines | #568 | ≈78,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | — | Elsa | 79 |
| PE Peru | #131 | ≈59,000 est. | ≈1 in 544 | — | Elsa | 84 |
| US United States | — | 50,134 | 1 in 6.6K | 50K | Elsa | 390 |
| SE Sweden | — | 49,574 | 1 in 206 | 50K | Elsa | 45 |
| EC Ecuador | #123 | 32,071 | 1 in 527 | 32K | Elsa | 58 |
| AO Angola | #94 | ≈16,000 est. | ≈1 in 2K | — | Elsa | 29 |
| FI Finland | — | 10,859 | 1 in 513 | 34K | Elsa | 17 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: RENAPER — Nombres de nacimientos (2012–present); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); IBGE — Nomes (census name API); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); INEC — civil registry names. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Elsa is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Shortened form of Elisabeth or }Elizabeth. The name was borne by the English-born film actress Elsa Lanchester (1902-86). Elsa Belton was a character in Angela Thirkell’s once widely read Barsetshire Chronicles. The name is now also associated with the lioness named Elsa featured in the book Born Free, by Joy Adamson, which was made into a film.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In Swedish, Elsa är ursprungligen en smekform till → Elisabeth. Namnet är ett av de populäraste givna namnen under de senaste årtiondena, 2014 och 2015 det allra vanligaste. Den animerade filmen Frost (2013), där prinsessan Elsa är en av huvudgestalterna, ökade på namnets popularitet. I den rikssvenska almanackan 30 oktober och i den finlandssvenska 14 oktober.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Elsa Beskowb. 1874SESwedish artist (1874-1953)
- Elsa Einsteinb. 1876DEsecond wife and cousin of Albert Einstein (1876-1936)
- Elsa Schiaparellib. 1890ITItalian fashion designer and couturier (1890–1973)
- Elsa Trioletb. 1896FRRussian-French writer (1896–1970)
- Elsa Lanchesterb. 1902GBBritish-American actress (1902–1986)
- Elsa Moranteb. 1912ITItalian novelist (1912–1985)
- Viveca Lindforsb. 1920SEnot in their usual nameSwedish actress (1920–1995)
- Elsa Zylbersteinb. 1968FRFrench actress
- Elsa Patakyb. 1976ESSpanish model and actress
- Elsa Hoskb. 1988SESwedish fashion model
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 122 sources across 67 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 50K | #898 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 50K | #79 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 34K | #52 |
| EC Ecuador | INEC — civil registry names | 2024 | 32K | #55 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 21K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 18K | #1,513 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 16K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 16K | #1,216 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register) | — | 11K | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 216 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 114 | #898 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 94 | — |
Reference works 5
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Elsa mean, and where does it come from?
- Short form of Elisabeth, from Hebrew Elisheva, 'my God is an oath'. Recorded by Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education).
- In which country does Elsa have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 128 thousand people named Elsa in Argentina, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled elsa.
- Where is Elsa most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Elsa is densest in Sweden — about 1 in 206 people — even though Argentina holds more of our records for it.
- Is Elsa a male or female name?
- Elsa is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What are other forms of the name Elsa?
- In the etymology graph, Elizabeth, Lisa and Isabel are forms of the same name in other languages; it is recorded as a short form of Elsabeth.
- How common is the name Elsa?
- In the United States, the national register counted 50,134 people named Elsa in 2020, about 1 in 6.6 thousand residents.
- How common is Elsa compared with other names?
- In Argentina, Elsa is the 130th most common given name of 119,825 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Elsa?
- A machine transcription gives /elsa/ (IPA) for Spanish.
What do you want to know about Elsa?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/elsaThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Elsa” — the 130th most common given name in Argentina. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.