Elena
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Elena is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Russia than in any other country, where it is the 2nd most common given name. Recorded meaning: Greek Helénē 'torch', 'bright, shining'; from PIE *swel- 'burn'.
- RORomania≈1 in 101(inferred from the name graph)
- ESSpain1 in 309
- RURussia≈1 in 30as Елена
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 Elena 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.
- Russia (inferred from the name graph)
- #2 (measured from records)
- 10 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 644 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 101 (inferred from the name graph)
≈4,700,000 named Елена, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Romania, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
19 other spellings are counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Елена in RU Russia, BY Belarus, FI Finland, Helen in US United States, Олена in UA Ukraine and Helena 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)
Greek Helénē 'torch', 'bright, shining'; from PIE *swel- 'burn'.
Sources 1
- Diccionario etimológico de nombres propios
Attested across 13 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Elena 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RU Russia | #2 | ≈4,700,000 est. | ≈1 in 30 | #3 | Елена | 309 |
| UA Ukraine | #2 | ≈1,100,000 est. | ≈1 in 41 | listed | Олена | 174 |
| BR Brazil | #17 | 366,186as Helena | 1 in 578 | 366K | Helena | 227 |
| US United States | #26 | 284,872as Alan | 1 in 1.2K | 483K | Helen | 644 |
| GR Greece | #9 | 272,590as Ελένη | 1 in 39 | 520K | Ελενη | 198 |
| BY Belarus | #1 | ≈270,000 est. | ≈1 in 35 | 39 | Елена | 81 |
| RO Romania | #1 | ≈210,000 est. | ≈1 in 101 | 847K | Elena | 179 |
| ES Spain | #22 | 161,702 | 1 in 309 | 162K | Elena | 251 |
| FI Finland | #1 | 117,524as Helena | 1 in 47 | 175K | Елена | 116 |
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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); DEPABD — name-day population snapshot; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); ELSTAT — population given names; According to a survey conducted by the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT), the most popular male and female names i; Universal Dependencies Belarusian-HSE Corpus — Person Names (UD_Belarusian-HSE); DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup). 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)
Elena 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.
From Greek: See )\Helen in main dictionary. - Cipriano ¢ From Latin Cypridnos ‘person from Cyprus’.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
Italian and Spanish form of Helen, now © sometimes also used in the Englishspeaking world.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
From Greek. See (Helen in main dictionary.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, A female given name from Italian, Spanish, or Ancient Greek.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Portuguese, a female given name, equivalent to English Helen
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)
- Elena Ceaușescub. 1919RORomanian politician (1919–1989)
- Elena Kaganb. 1960USAssociate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 2010
- Nadia Comănecib. 1961ROnot in their usual nameRomanian gymnast and five-time Olympic gold medalist (born 1961)
- Laura Harringb. 1964MXnot in their usual nameMexican actress and Miss USA 1985
- Virginia Raggib. 1978ITnot in their usual nameItalian politician (1978)
- Jelena Jankovićb. 1985RSnot in their usual nameSerbian tennis player
- Innab. 1986ROnot in their usual nameRomanian singer and songwriter
- Ellie Gouldingb. 1986GBnot in their usual nameEnglish singer and songwriter (born 1986)
- Gigi Hadidb. 1995USnot in their usual nameAmerican fashion model and television personality (born 1995)
- Elena Rybakinab. 1999RUKazakhstani tennis player
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 140 sources across 67 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RO Romania | DEPABD — name-day population snapshot | 2022 | 847K | — |
| RO Romania | DEPABD — resident population names | 2022 | 847K | — |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 162K | #52 |
| ES Spain | INE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 161K | #23 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 114K | #491 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 47K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 47K | #592 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 40K | #900 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 11K | — |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 9.5K | #219 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register) | — | 6.1K | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 4.8K | — |
Reference works 8
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
- Ismlar.com — Uzbek given-name dictionary (meanings, gender, origin)
- 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 are other forms of the name Elena?
- In the etymology graph, Helen, Elaine and Ellen are forms of the same name in other languages; Alena, Leni and Lene are recorded short or pet forms.
- What does the name Elena mean, and where does it come from?
- Greek Helénē 'torch', 'bright, shining'; from PIE *swel- 'burn'. Recorded by Diccionario etimológico de nombres propios.
- In which country does Elena have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 4.7 million people named Елена in Russia, more than in any other country we hold.
- Is Elena a male or female name?
- Elena 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.
- How common is the name Elena?
- In Spain, the national register counted 161,702 people named Elena, about 1 in 309 residents.
- How common is Elena compared with other names?
- In Russia, Elena is the 2nd most common given name of 472,143 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Elena?
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/elenaThe same 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), and bulk access is licensed separately.
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, “Elena” — the 2nd most common given name in Russia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.