Nova
The girl's name Nova has been in the national records since 1880, with 59,010 births to its name. In 2025 it ranked 46th. About 56,000 Novas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 5.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Nova boys named Nova
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 59,010
- Estimated living today
- 56,000
- Median age today
- 5
- Peak year
- 2022
- Best rank
- 32nd
- Rank in 2025
- 46th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 55,783 / 3,227
How old the living Novas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 59,010 babies given the name since 1880, about 56,000 are alive — 94 in every hundred. Roughly 53,000 of them are children and 660 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2020 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 Latin
From Latin nova (“new”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Novas
- Nova Peris (born 1971)Australian politician, hockey player and sprinter
- Nova Widianto (born 1977)badminton player
- Nova Pilbeam (1919–2015)British actress
People named Nova with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Nova is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Nova is most concentrated in Nevada (2.9×), Florida (1.7×), Delaware (1.7×), Georgia (1.6×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2022
The most popular girls’ names the year Nova peaked:
Nova elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sweden girls | Nova | 7,397 | 22nd |
| England and Wales girls | Nova | 4,279 | 68th |
| Norway girls | Nova | 614 | 86th |
| Belgium girls | Nova | 559 | 100th |
| Scotland girls | Nova | 470 | 59th |
| France girls | Nova | 355 | 699th |
| Switzerland girls | Nova | 252 | 308th |
| England and Wales boys | Nova | 196 | 1,084th |
| Ireland girls | Nova | 192 | 171st |
| Northern Ireland girls | Nova | 84 | 101st |
| France boys | Nova | 65 | 2,533rd |
| Belgium boys | Nova | 20 | 863rd |
| Switzerland boys | Nova | 12 | 1,605th |
| Scotland boys | Nova | 6 | 711th |
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.
Nova: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Nova | 227 | 0.018% | 245th |
| German boys | Switzerland | Nova | 10 | 0.001% | 1,317th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Nova | 24 | 0.006% | 331st |
| French boys | Switzerland | Nova | 2 | 0.000% | 830th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Nova | 1 | 0.002% | 183rd |
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, Nova is most concentrated in Zurich, where 0.03% of children were given it – 85 of them.
Nova: rank by region
In 2025, Nova was given 5 times or more in 3 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Nova | 64 | 72 |
| Wallonia | Nova | 300 | 9 |
| Brussels | Nova | 244 | 5 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Nova appears in the lists for Province of West Flanders (50th), Province of East Flanders (53rd), Province of Antwerp (60th), Province of Flemish Brabant (108th) and Brussels-Capital Region (244th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 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.
Nova by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 30 | 219th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Nova 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands girls | Nova | 3,283 | 4,174 |
| Finland girls | Nova | 283 | 389 |
| the Netherlands boys | Nova | 44 | 84 |
| Finland boys | Nova | 39 | 59 |
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, Finland on 4 August 2026 – 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.
Related names
Nova 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.