Helder
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Helder is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Mozambique than in any other country, where it is the 13th most common given name. Recorded meaning: from OE healdan 'to hold', a tenant/occupier; or from OE hylde 'slope'; possibly 'the elder' with inorganic H; first attested Hugh, Cristiana le Heldere 1212 Cur (Herts), 1279 RH (C).
- PTPortugal≈1 in 465(inferred from the name graph)
- AOAngola≈1 in 1.5K
- 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.
- Mozambique (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 195 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 465 (inferred from the name graph)
≈52,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Portugal, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
- OEhealdan(measured from records)
- OEhylde(measured from records)
from OE healdan 'to hold', a tenant/occupier; or from OE hylde 'slope'; possibly 'the elder' with inorganic H; first attested Hugh, Cristiana le Heldere 1212 Cur (Herts), 1279 RH (C).
Sources 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Helder 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MZ Mozambique | #13 | ≈52,000 est. | ≈1 in 579 | 2 | Helder | 38 |
| AO Angola | #38 | ≈22,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.5K | 3 | Helder | 53 |
| PT Portugal | #66 | ≈22,000 est. | ≈1 in 465 | listed | Helder | 158 |
| BR Brazil | #990 | 14,394 | 1 in 15K | 14K | Helder | 162 |
| FR France | — | ≈2,000 est. | ≈1 in 34K | 700 | Helder | 5 |
| FI Finland | #814 | ≈1,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.5K | 41 | Helder | 5 |
| CH Switzerland | #749 | ≈970 est. | ≈1 in 8.7K | — | Helder | 47 |
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); the pt-irn-lista-nomes register; Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names; INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family 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)
Helder 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 German, Toponymic surname from mhd. helde (umgelautete Form of halde); 64 tokens, mainly around Frankfurt/Main.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
from a Germanic personal name, Halidher, composed of the elements halid ‘hero’ -I- hari, heri ‘army’, or from another personal name, Hildher, composed of the elements hild ‘strife’, ‘battle’ + the same second element.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
from an agent derivative of Old English healdan ‘to hold’, hence a name denoting an occupier or tenant. Compare Holder.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
topographic name for someone living on a slope, from Middle Dutch helldinge ‘slanting surface’. Compare Halder.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
possibly a variant of Elder, with the addition of an inorganic initial H-.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
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)
- Hélder de Souzab. 1901PTPortuguese equestrian
- Hélder Câmarab. 1909BRBrazilian Catholic priest, archbishop of Olinda and Recife (1909–1999)
- Hélder Costab. 1939PTPortuguese dramatist and playwright
- Hélder Moutinhob. 1969PTPortuguese singer
- Hélder Cristóvãob. 1971PTfootball player and manager
- Helder Barbalhob. 1979BRBrazilian politician
- Hélder Postigab. 1982PTPortuguese footballer
- Hélder Barbosab. 1987PTPortuguese footballer
- Hélder Filipe Oliveira Lopesb. 1989PTPortuguese footballer
- Hélder Costab. 1994AOAngolan association football 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 50 sources across 26 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | #1,333 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 13K | #1,800 |
| BR Brazil | Brasil.IO genero-nomes (IBGE Censo 2010 mirror, CC-BY-SA) | — | 13K | #613 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 2007 | 700 | #1,685 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 116 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 71 | #1,333 |
| BR Brazil | Brasil.IO genero-nomes (IBGE Censo 2010 mirror, CC-BY-SA) | — | 63 | #30,052 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 41 | #7,156 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 15 | #31,633 |
| AO Angola | Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names | — | 3 | #77 |
| PT Portugal | IRN — Lista de Nomes Próprios admitidos | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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 Helder mean, and where does it come from?
- from OE healdan 'to hold', a tenant/occupier; or from OE hylde 'slope'; possibly 'the elder' with inorganic H; first attested Hugh, Cristiana le Heldere 1212 Cur (Herts), 1279 RH (C). Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- Is Helder a male or female name?
- Helder is a male 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 Helder?
- In the etymology graph, Hether is a form of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Helder have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 52 thousand people named Helder in Mozambique, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled helder.
- How common is the name Helder?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 14,394 people named Helder in 2022, about 1 in 15 thousand residents.
- How common is Helder compared with other names?
- In Mozambique, Helder is the 13th most common given name of 1,034 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Helder?
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/helderThe 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, “Helder” — the 13th most common given name in Mozambique. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.