Nellie
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Pet form of Helen; occasionally used independently in Ireland
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/nɛʎi/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Nellie is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- SESweden1 in 1.1K(measured from records)
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 5.7K
- SGSingapore≈1 in 5.9K
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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 409 (measured from records)
- 1 in 1.1K (inferred from the name graph)
≈230,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Sweden
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Pet form of Helen; occasionally used independently in Ireland.
Sources 1
- Irish first names
Attested across 22 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Nellie 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 | — | ≈230,000 est. | ≈1 in 6.1K | — | Nellie | 14 |
| US United States | #701 | 26,255 | 1 in 13K | 26K | Nellie | 409 |
| PH Philippines | — | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 10K | — | Nellie | 60 |
| SE Sweden | #498 | 9,158 | 1 in 1.1K | 9.2K | Nellie | 61 |
| GB United Kingdom | #783 | ≈7,600 est. | ≈1 in 8.6K | 500 | Nellie | 124 |
| DK Denmark | — | 1,247 | 1 in 4.7K | 1.2K | Nellie | 43 |
| SG Singapore | #509 | ≈1,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.9K | — | Nellie | 44 |
| NZ New Zealand | #485 | ≈870 est. | ≈1 in 5.7K | 11 | Nellie | 57 |
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; ONS — Baby names England and Wales (2024); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present). 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)
Nellie is also recorded in 3 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 diminutive of the female given names Eleanor, Ellen, Helen, or Chanel; popular as a formal given name at the turn of the 20th century.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Swedish, Nellie (m.fl former) är ursprungligen en engelsk smekform till → Eleonora, → Ellen, → Helena, → Petronella m.fl. namn. Namnet har varit mycket populärt de senaste årtiondena men är nu på nedgång. I den finlandssvenska almanackan 11 juli.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
In English, Kate, Canadian actress
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper 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)
- Nellie Melbab. 1861AUAustralian opera singer (1861–1931)
- Helen Taftb. 1861USnot in their usual nameFirst Lady of the United States from 1909 to 1913
- Nellie Blyb. 1864USAmerican journalist
- Madame Sul-Te-Wanb. 1873USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress (1873–1959)
- Nellie Tayloe Rossb. 1876USFirst woman state governor in the U.S.
- Nellie Connallyb. 1919USFirst Lady of Texas from 1963 to 1969
- Nellie Foxb. 1927USAmerican baseball player and coach (1927–1975)
- Polly Bergenb. 1930USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress (1930-2014)
- Nellie Bellflowerb. 1946USAmerican actress
- Nellie McKayb. 1982USAmerican musician
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 63 sources across 38 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 26K | #1,355 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 9.2K | #423 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 7.3K | — |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 1.2K | #347 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 567 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | ONS — Baby names England and Wales (2024) | 2024 | 500 | #93 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 64 | #1,355 |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 2024 | 16 | #230 |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 2025 | 11 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present) | 2025 | 8 | #205 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1947 | 6 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present) | 2018 | — | — |
Reference works 2
- 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 Nellie mean, and where does it come from?
- Pet form of Helen; occasionally used independently in Ireland. Recorded by Irish first names.
- What are other forms of the name Nellie?
- In the etymology graph, Elena, Helen and Ellen are forms of the same name in other languages; it is recorded as a short form of Ellie and Nell.
- Is Nellie a male or female name?
- Nellie 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 Nellie have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 228 thousand people named Nellie in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled nellie.
- Where is Nellie most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Nellie is densest in Sweden — about 1 in 1.1 thousand people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Nellie?
- In the United States, the national register counted 26,255 people named Nellie in 2020, about 1 in 13 thousand residents.
- How common is Nellie compared with other names?
- In New Zealand, Nellie is the 485th most common given name of 26,737 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Nellie?
- A machine transcription gives /nɛʎi/ (IPA) for English.
What do you want to know about Nellie?
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/nellieThe 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, “Nellie” — the 485th most common given name in New Zealand. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.