Elma
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Short form or variant of Germanic names beginning with El-, often interpreted as 'noble' or 'protection'
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ɛɫmə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Elma is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the Philippines than in any other country.
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 2K(inferred from the name graph)
- ARArgentina≈1 in 13K
- BRBrazil1 in 15K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Philippines (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 232 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 2.0K (inferred from the name graph)
≈55,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Philippines, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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 or variant of Germanic names beginning with El-, often interpreted as 'noble' or 'protection'.
Sources 1
- Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Attested across 16 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Elma 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PH Philippines | #779 | ≈55,000 est. | ≈1 in 2K | — | Elma | 82 |
| BR Brazil | — | 14,440 | 1 in 15K | 16K | Elma | 85 |
| US United States | — | 8,574 | 1 in 39K | 8.4K | Elma | 232 |
| AR Argentina | #950 | ≈3,400 est. | ≈1 in 13K | 12 | Elma | 44 |
| ZA South Africa | — | ≈3,300 est. | ≈1 in 17K | — | Elma | 15 |
| SE Sweden | — | 2,653 | 1 in 3.8K | 2.7K | — | 10 |
| FI Finland | — | 2,350 | 1 in 2.4K | 11K | Elma | 4 |
| XK Kosovo | — | ≈610 est. | ≈1 in 3.2K | 2K | — | 2 |
| SI Slovenia | — | 533 | 1 in 3.9K | 563 | — | 6 |
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: IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); IBGE — Nomes (census name API); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); ASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search); SURS — resident population given names; stat.si Imena rojstva — full name register (per-token frequency + rank). 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)
Elma 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 English, A female given name originating as a coinage.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Swedish, Elma är ursprungligen en smekform till namn som Elmira, Vilhelma eller en feminin form till → Elmer. Det kan också vara en sammanslagning av delar av namnen → Elisa beth och → Maria. Namnet blev populärt runt förra sekelskiftet samtidigt med namn med liknande struktur som → Alma, → Hilma och → Selma, namn som också idag är populära. I den finlandssvenska almanackan 12 februari.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
In French, Germanic name meaning ‘helmet’.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In English, pleasant, amiable
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In German, seit dem 19. Jh. vorkommender weibl.
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
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)
- Elma Strömb. 1822SESwedish actress
- Elma Danielssonb. 1865SESwedish journalist
- Elma Lewisb. 1921USfounder of the National Center of Afro-American Artists and the Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts (1921–2004)
- Elma Parsamyanb. 1929AMsoviet Armenian astrophysicist and astronomer
- Elma Karlowab. 1932HRYugoslav actress (1932-1994)
- Elma van Harenb. 1954NLDutch poet and writer
- Elma Murosb. 1967PHFilipino long jumper
- Elma Davisb. 1968ZASouth African lawn bowler (1968-2019)
- Elma Sinanovićb. 1974RSBosniak singer
- Elma de Vriesb. 1983NLDutch speed skater
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 106 sources across 54 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 16K | #1,585 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 14K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 14K | #1,328 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 11K | #197 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 8.4K | #2,735 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 2.7K | #899 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register) | — | 2.4K | — |
| XK Kosovo | ASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search) | — | 2K | #369 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 1.7K | — |
| SI Slovenia | stat.si Imena rojstva — full name register (per-token frequency + rank) | — | 563 | #567 |
| SI Slovenia | SURS — resident population given names | 2025 | 533 | #293 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 131 | #2,735 |
Reference works 4
- 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)
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 Elma mean, and where does it come from?
- Short form or variant of Germanic names beginning with El-, often interpreted as 'noble' or 'protection'. Recorded by Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education).
- Is Elma a male or female name?
- Elma 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 Elma have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 55 thousand people named Elma in the Philippines, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled elma.
- How do you pronounce Elma?
- A machine transcription gives /ɛɫmə/ (IPA) for English.
- What are other forms of the name Elma?
- In the etymology graph, Mina, Vilma and Wilma are forms of the same name in other languages; it is recorded as a short form of Wilhelmina and Wilhelmine.
- How common is the name Elma?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 14,440 people named Elma in 2022, about 1 in 15 thousand residents.
- How common is Elma compared with other names?
- In the Philippines, Elma is the 779th most common given name of 486,299 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Elma?
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/elmaThe 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, “Elma” — the 779th most common given name in Philippines. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.