Elsa
About 30,731 American babies have been named Elsa since 1880, most of them around 2014. In 2025 it ranked 1,104th. About 22,000 Elsas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 30.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Elsa boys named Elsa
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 30,731
- Estimated living today
- 22,000
- Median age today
- 30
- Peak year
- 2014
- Best rank
- 286th
- Rank in 2025
- 1,104th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 30,710 / 21
How old the living Elsas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 30,731 babies given the name since 1880, about 22,000 are alive — 73 in every hundred. Roughly 7,800 of them are children and 3,400 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1995 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin German, Hebrew
From German Elsa, contraction of Elisabeth, occasionally used in English after its appearance in Wagner's opera Lohengrin (1847). The common noun is after the character of the Frozen series of films.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Elsas
- Elsa Morante (1912–1985)Italian novelist
- Elsa Lanchester (1902–1986)British-American actress
- Elsa Pataky (born 1976)Spanish model and actress
- Elsa Triolet (1896–1970)Russian-French writer
- Elsa Martinelli (1935–2017)Italian fashion model and actress
- Elsa Schiaparelli (1890–1973)Italian fashion designer and couturier
- Elsa Hosk (born 1988)Swedish fashion model
- Elsa Beskow (1874–1953)Swedish artist
People named Elsa with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Elsa is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Elsa is most concentrated in Texas (2.7×), California (2.3×), Arizona (1.9×), Minnesota (1.8×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2014
The most popular girls’ names the year Elsa peaked:
Elsa elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France girls | Elsa | 49,195 | 55th |
| Sweden girls | Elsa | 14,849 | 1st |
| Spain girls | Elsa | 12,486 | 36th |
| England and Wales girls | Elsa | 3,684 | 104th |
| Norway girls | Elsa | 2,073 | 59th |
| Belgium girls | Elsa | 2,031 | 53rd |
| Italy girls | Elsa | 1,544 | — |
| Switzerland girls | Elsa | 1,118 | 84th |
| Ireland girls | Elsa | 279 | 158th |
| Scotland girls | Elsa | 182 | 152nd |
| Northern Ireland girls | Elsa | 66 | 171st |
| Poland girls | Elsa | 28 birth registrations | 463rd |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Elsa: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Elsa | 388 | 0.031% | 189th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Elsa | 709 | 0.163% | 22nd |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Elsa | 21 | 0.032% | 90th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Elsa is most concentrated in Jura, where 0.27% of children were given it – 39 of them.
Elsa: rank by region
In 2025, Elsa was given 5 times or more in 3 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Elsa | 370 | 14 |
| Wallonia | Elsa | 132 | 19 |
| Brussels | Elsa | 159 | 7 |
In 2015, Elsa was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Elsa | 10 | 1 |
In 2023, Elsa was given 2 times or more in 1 region of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mazowieckie | Elsa | 318 | 2 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Elsa appears in the lists for Province of Hainaut (117th), Province of Liège (157th) and Brussels-Capital Region (159th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Elsa by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 105 | 133rd |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Elsa among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Elsa | 7,332 | 10,910 |
| the Netherlands girls | Elsa | 1,424 | 2,278 |
| the Netherlands boys | Elsa | — | 29 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026, the Netherlands on 1 January 2018 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Elsa lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 19,408 women called Elsa were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palencia | Elsa | 143 | 1.790 | 117 |
| Valladolid | Elsa | 438 | 1.615 | 131 |
| Cantabria | Elsa | 459 | 1.499 | 137 |
| Burgos | Elsa | 259 | 1.429 | 144 |
| Rioja, La | Elsa | 211 | 1.274 | 143 |
| Salamanca | Elsa | 214 | 1.264 | 152 |
Listed in 52 of Spain's 52 provinces. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Elsa against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.