Hilary
given name · Latin script
Meaning: (i) from the medieval male personal name Hilary, from Latin Hilarius, from hilaris ‘cheerful’; (ii) from the medieval female personal name Eulalie, from Latin Eulalia, based on Greek eulalos ‘eloquent
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Hilary is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 3.5K(inferred from the name graph)
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 5.6K
- IEIreland≈1 in 6.3K
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 Hilary 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)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 462 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 3.5K (inferred from the name graph)
≈75,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
United Kingdom, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled הילרי in PL Poland.
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)
- LatinHilarius(measured from records)
- LatinEulalia(measured from records)
(i) from the medieval male personal name Hilary, from Latin Hilarius, from hilaris ‘cheerful’; (ii) from the medieval female personal name Eulalie, from Latin Eulalia, based on Greek eulalos ‘eloquent’
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Hilary 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 | — | ≈75,000 est. | ≈1 in 19K | — | Hilary | 22 |
| US United States | — | 27,773as Hillary | 1 in 12K | 27K | Hilary | 462 |
| NG Nigeria | — | ≈21,000 est. | ≈1 in 10K | — | Hilary | 75 |
| GB United Kingdom | #383 | ≈19,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.5K | 3 | Hilary | 239 |
| BR Brazil | — | 8,563as Hillary | 1 in 25K | 8.6K | — | 1 |
| AU Australia | #742 | ≈3,700 est. | ≈1 in 7K | 3 | Hilary | 175 |
| CR Costa Rica | — | 2,490as Hillary | 1 in 2K | 2.5K | — | 1 |
| NZ New Zealand | #394 | ≈880 est. | ≈1 in 5.6K | 21 | Hilary | 117 |
| IE Ireland | #323 | ≈830 est. | ≈1 in 6.3K | — | Hilary | 97 |
| PL Poland | — | 445 | 1 in 86K | 442 | הילרי | 3 |
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); Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names; DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present); dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20); dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (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)
Hilary is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, Latin ‘joyful’; occasionally used in Ireland; Irish form may have been influenced by French Hilaire.
as a nameIrish first names
In Polish, Hilary, Hilaire
as a namePolish Personal Names (CIA Foreign Names Studies, ch. 24)
In French, Forme anglo-saxonne féminine d’Hilaire; origine latine, signifie « gaie ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In French, Latin Hilarius/Hilaria, de hilaris « joyeux ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
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)
- Hilary Putnamb. 1926USAmerican philosopher and mathematician
- Hilary Mantelb. 1952GBBritish writer (1952–2022)
- Hilary Bennb. 1953GBBritish politician (born 1953)
- Hilary Henkinb. 1962USAmerican screenwriter
- Alex Kurtzmanb. 1973USnot in their usual nameAmerican television producer
- Hilary Swankb. 1974USAmerican actress (born 1974)
- Hilary Hahnb. 1979USAmerican classical violinist
- Hilary Duffb. 1987USAmerican actress and singer (born 1987)
- Hilary Rhodab. 1987USAmerican model
- Hilary Caldwellb. 1990CACanadian swimmer, Olympic athlete, Pan American Games gold medallist
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 86 sources across 46 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 23K | #1,414 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 4.8K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 4.8K | #2,792 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 1.9K | #6,190 |
| CR Costa Rica | TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names | — | 1.5K | #432 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 1.2K | #1,414 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 854 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 442 | #717 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20) | 2026 | 420 | #780 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 81 | #2,792 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 25 | #3,637 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20) | 2026 | 25 | #3,638 |
Reference works 6
- 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)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- 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 Hilary mean, and where does it come from?
- (i) from the medieval male personal name Hilary, from Latin Hilarius, from hilaris ‘cheerful’; (ii) from the medieval female personal name Eulalie, from Latin Eulalia, based on Greek eulalos ‘eloquent… Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How common is the name Hilary?
- In Poland, the national register counted 445 people named Hilary in 2026, about 1 in 86 thousand residents.
- How common is Hilary compared with other names?
- In Ireland, Hilary is the 323rd most common given name of 14,976 given names recorded there.
- Is Hilary a male or female name?
- Hilary 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 Hilary have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 75 thousand people named Hilary in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled hilary.
What do you want to know about Hilary?
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/hilaryThe 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, “Hilary” — the 323rd most common given name in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.