Elen
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Welsh form of Helen. It is identical with the Welsh vocabulary word elen ‘nymph’, but this is unlikely to be the origin
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/elẽ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Elen is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In the Netherlands it is the 61st most common given name.
- SESweden1 in 338as Ellen(measured from records)
- NONorway1 in 464as Ellen
- DKDenmark1 in 500as Ellen
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 Elen 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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- #426 (measured from records)
- 4 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 580 (measured from records)
- 1 in 1.9K (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,000,000 named Ellen, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Czechia
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Ellen in US United States, GB United Kingdom, PH Philippines and 6 more and Էլեն in AM Armenia.
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)
Welsh form of Helen. It is identical with the Welsh vocabulary word elen ‘nymph’, but this is unlikely to be the origin. It is found in Welsh texts from an early period as an equivalent of Helen, for example as the name of the mother of Constantine, finder of the True Cross. Variant: Elin.
Sources 1
- A concise dictionary of first names
Attested across 20 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Elen 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈1,000,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | — | Ellen | 57 |
| US United States | #190 | 173,112as Ellen | 1 in 1.9K | 173K | Ellen | 580 |
| BR Brazil | #863 | 61,520as Ellen | 1 in 3.4K | 62K | Elen | 128 |
| GB United Kingdom | #195 | ≈54,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | 14 | Ellen | 296 |
| PH Philippines | #457 | ≈50,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.2K | — | Ellen | 132 |
| SE Sweden | #141 | 30,207as Ellen | 1 in 338 | 30K | Ellen | 108 |
| FI Finland | — | 13,378as Ellen | 1 in 416 | 24K | Ellen | 48 |
| NO Norway | #114 | 11,778as Ellen | 1 in 464 | 33K | Ellen | 107 |
| DK Denmark | #175 | 11,739as Ellen | 1 in 500 | 12K | Ellen | 126 |
| CZ Czechia | — | 5,726 | 1 in 1.9K | 5.7K | — | 3 |
| AM Armenia | #100 | ≈5,600 est. | ≈1 in 540 | 298 | Էլեն | 55 |
| NL Netherlands | #61 | 997as Elle | 1 in 17K | 17K | Ellen | 131 |
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: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017); 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); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); Statistical Committee of the Republic of Armenia — Most Frequent Newborn Given Names by Sex, Armenian script, 2008-2020 + 2023; MVČR — living population register 2017. 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)
Elen is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Romanian, < gr."EAsvog 1. Elenescu si Elinescu, act. 2. Ilinu, Banta, munt. (BCI VIII 35 si XII 114) ; fam. (Drag 159) sau < Elena ; cu afer. : Linu : v. si Elena I 6.
as a nameDictionar Onomastic Rominesc
In French, Variante d’Hélène, du grec helēnē « éclat ».
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
Welsh: probably a Welsh form of HELEN . It is identical with the vocabulary word elen nymph, but was used in Welsh texts from an early period as the name of the mother of Constantine, finder of the True Cross. Variant: Elin .
as a word
In Welsh, first/third-person plural conditional colloquial of mynd
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In German, moose, Eurasian elk (Alces alces)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- Elen Luyddogb. 340GBlegendary wife of Macsen Wledig (Magnus Maximus) who brought the ideas of Martin of Tours to Wales
- Elen ferch Llywelynb. 1218Welsh royalty
- Elen Christensenb. 1904NONorwegian sculptor
- Elen Dosiab. 1915FRsinger
- Elen Willardb. 1941USAmerican former actress
- Elen Bunatyantsb. 1970RUOlympic basketball player
- Elen Lotmanb. 1981EEEstonian film maker (born 1981)
- Elen Rhysb. 1983GBactress
- Elen Evansb. 1985GBAmerican-football player (1985-)
- Elen Levonb. 1994AUAustralian singer
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 74 sources across 36 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 60K | #678 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 52K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 52K | #550 |
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 5.7K | #247 |
| CZ Czechia | naše jména — 2016 MVČR snapshot | — | 2.9K | #273 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 1.8K | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 1.3K | #10,174 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 1.3K | #1,432 |
| NO Norway | SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891) | 2025 | 441 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 321 | #550 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 148 | #6,533 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 107 | #2,754 |
Reference works 5
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name 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 Elen mean, and where does it come from?
- Welsh form of Helen. It is identical with the Welsh vocabulary word elen ‘nymph’, but this is unlikely to be the origin. Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names.
- What are other forms of the name Elen?
- In the etymology graph, Elena, Helen and Elaine are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Elen?
- A machine transcription gives /elẽ/ (IPA) for Portuguese.
- Is Elen a male or female name?
- Elen 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.
- In which country does Elen have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.0 million people named Ellen in China, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Elen most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Elen is densest in Czechia — about 1 in 1.9 thousand people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Elen?
- In Czechia, the national register counted 5,726 people named Elen, about 1 in 1.9 thousand residents.
- How common is Elen compared with other names?
- In the Netherlands, Elen is the 61st most common given name of 101,916 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Elen?
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/elenThe 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, “Elen” — the 61st most common given name in Netherlands. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.