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The first name 
Ellen

Ellen is a female first name. In very rare cases it is also used for boys.

Ellen is a common name for girls!

The name Ellen isn’t among the current fashionable names in our top 10 stats, but nonetheless, it’s still very popular and common. In our SmartGenius ranking of all girls names, Ellen ranks 693. Recently, out of every 10,000 newborn girls, approximately 2 were named Ellen. In the entire USA, approximately 249,169 people – children, adults and seniors – currently bear the name Ellen. That is 0.07 % of all living Americans.

You won't believe all there is 
to discover about the name
 
Ellen

What does the name 
Ellen mean?

Ellen is the medieval English form of Helen, a name of Greek origin meaning ‘torch’ or ‘light’. Helen only became common in England in the 19th century.

In Dutch,... Ellen is used as a short form of Eleonora, possibly meaning 'famous wealth'.

Ellen -
very popular in the late 19th century

Appearing throughout the time in the United States, the name Ellen is a staple in the country: Girls have been given the name Ellen for more than 140 years, according to official U.S. naming statistics. Ellen is therefore one of the 432 girls’ names that have been given every year since 1880. Even beyond that, Ellen is a very special name that peaked in popularity over 100 years ago in the 19th century, ranking in the top 100 girls' names in our SmartGenius first name statistics: With #58 Ellen has never been more popular than back in 1884.

In years where the graph has no value, the name Ellen was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.

Ellen -
at home all over the USA, especially popular in Massachusetts

Wherever you go, wherever you live – there’s a good chance to meet Ellen. Because: There are women and girls named Ellen in every state in the USA. This may sound quite unspectacular at first, but in fact, of the more than 50,000 different female first names that occur in the USA, just 537 are recorded in each individual state, so the name Ellen is definitely something very special. In some regions it even makes it into the top 100 of the most popular female first names, for example in New York, where Ellen ranks on place 78. The greatest chance of meeting Ellen, however, is in Massachusetts, where one in 287 girls and women bears this beautiful name – that is far above average – in the entire USA it is only one in 619 women and girls and in Nevada, where the name is least represented in relation to the population, you even have to ask an average of 3,661 women and girls for their name before you once get Ellen as an answer.

Ellen has 5 letters 
and begins with an E

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 five letters, the name Ellen is comparatively short. In fact, 17.0% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly five letters. Only 7% of all first names are even shorter, while 75% have more than five 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.

Other names with 
E, l, l, e and n

If you take all the letters in the name Ellen – E, l, l, e and n – and put them together again, you can form other names, such as Lelen or Nelle.

With hands, flags and sounds 
How to say Ellen

If your name is Ellen 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...

This is how you spell the name Ellen

So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Ellen, you can simply say:

Elephant

Lion

Lion

Elephant

Nut

This is how the name Ellen is spelled in the NATO phonetic alphabet

The NATO alphabet often helps people spell words on the phone or radio when there are communication problems.

How do you write Ellen in Braille?

Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.

Ellen

Ellen

You want to tell a deaf person that your name is Ellen

Just use American Sign Language!

The name Ellen is particularly colorful in the Semaphore flag signaling system!

These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.

E
L
L
E
N

Have you ever waved the name Ellen

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
L
E
N

Beeping like crazy...

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. Ellen sounds like this: