In Welsh and Scandinavian languages, Elin is a variant of the name Helen. This is the English derivation of the Greek [Helene] meaning ‘torch’ or ‘light’.
Elin is a first name typically given to girls, but in rare cases also used as a boys name.
Elin is a well-known name in the US, but is still special. It is currently only given to every ten thousandth girl, and therefore ranks at 1,004 in the SmartGenius statistics. This means there are 1,003 girls names that are more common, but also tens of thousands that are much rarer. If you polled the whole US population – children, adults and seniors – you’d find less than one in 10,000 to be named Elin.
You may not know anyone named Elin, but there’s a good chance you live in the same state as someone with that name. In fact, 35 states are home to women and girls named Elin. (To be fair, a given name is only included in a state’s official statistics if there are at least five people with that name living in that state – so it’s entirely possible that there are still a few women and girls named Elin living in one state or another. If your name is Elin and you live outside of the states highlighted on the map, please let us know so we can refine our statistics even further). And while the first name is present in many states, it is still not one of the popular ones. In Minnesota, which has the most people named Elin relative to the population, you still have to ask 8,702 women and girls their names before you hear Elin as an answer just once.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter E is neither particularly common nor particularly rare as a first letter for girls' names: 3.9% of all common girls' names in the US begin with this letter. The most common first letters of girls' names, by the way, are A, S and M, while U, X and Q are the least common initials of girls' names.
With four letters, the name Elin is shorter than most other given names. In fact, only 5.5% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly four letters. Just 1.2% of all first names are even shorter, while 93% consist of more than four letters. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long. There are no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.
That means that with 3.9%, E as the first letter in girls' names is almost as common as all 26 letters on average - and of all the girls' names that start with an E, Elizabeth is the most common.
If your name is Elin and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...
So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Elin, you can simply say:
Elephant
Lion
Igloo
Nut
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Elin
Elin
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
E
L
I
N
In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.
E
L
I
N
In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Elin sounds like this:
