Elaine
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Form of Helen from Arthurian romance; popularized in modern use
A female name· listed as female by the registers that count names by sex
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 49 countries · latest register: SSA, 2025
/iːˈleɪn/(recorded in a dictionary) English · from Wiktionary
Elaine is a female given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Brazil than in any other country.
- HKHong Kong≈1 in 520few records(inferred from the name graph)
- IEIreland≈1 in 540few records
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 610
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 Elaine 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.
- Brazil (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 371 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 518 (inferred from the name graph)
241,786 people, 2022
recorded for this name
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Hong Kong, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts
(measured from records)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)Form of Helen from Arthurian romance; popularized in modern use.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Irish first names
Attested across 22 languages in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Elaine, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Elaine 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | #149 | 241,786 | 1 in 876 | 257K | Elaine | 215 |
| US United States | — | 176,185 | 1 in 1.9K | 176K | Elaine | 371 |
| GB United Kingdom | #926 | ≈110,000 est. | ≈1 in 612 | 5 | Elaine | 125 |
| PH Philippines | — | ≈45,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.6K | — | Elaine | 74 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈40,000 est. | ≈1 in 1K | 8 | Elaine | 103 |
| HK Hong Kong | #336 | ≈15,000 est. | ≈1 in 518 | — | Elaine | 49 |
| IE Ireland | #643 | ≈9,900 est. | ≈1 in 542 | 5 | Elaine | 34 |
241,786 people counted by IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror), 2022. 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: IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); IBGE — Nomes (census name API); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present). 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)Elaine is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
A form of Helen used in Arthurian romance. Tennyson’s Idylls of the King (1859-88) led to its modern use, and it is now an jestablished name in Ireland.
as a nameIrish first names
In English, A female given name from Ancient Greek.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Swedish, Elaine är en fornfransk och engelsk form av → Helena. En känd fiktiv namnbärare är Elaine Benes i den amerikanska tv-serien Seinfeld (1989–1998).
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
In French, Variante d’Hélène, du grec helēnē « éclat, torche »; fête de sainte Hélène.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
In English, The light of the sun.
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
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)- Elaine Mayb. 1932USAmerican screenwriter, film director, actress, and comedian (b. 1932)
- Margaret Hamiltonb. 1936USnot in their usual nameAmerican NASA scientist and mathematician
- Elaine Showalterb. 1941USAmerican literary critic, feminist, and writer on cultural and social issues
- Whoopi Goldbergb. 1955USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress, comedian, author and television personality
- Lori Lightfootb. 1962USnot in their usual nameMayor of Chicago from 2019 to 2023
- Kath Soucieb. 1963USnot in their usual nameAmerican voice actress
- Naomi Campbellb. 1970GBnot in their usual nameBritish ubermodel
- Robyn Livelyb. 1972USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress (born 1972)
- Georgina Catesb. 1975GBnot in their usual nameactress
- Elaine Cassidyb. 1979IEIrish actress
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).
How to address them
(machine-generated)A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence
(measured from records)88 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 49 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 257K | #197 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 242K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 241K | #127 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 176K | #313 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 1K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 877 | #127 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 657 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 179 | #313 |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 62 | — |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2024 | 8 | #536 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1989 | 6 | — |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2017 | 5 | #651 |
Reference works 3
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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 Elaine mean, and where does it come from?
- Form of Helen from Arthurian romance; popularized in modern use. Recorded by Irish first names.
- What are other forms of the name Elaine?
- In the etymology graph, Elena, Helen and Ellen are forms of the same name in other languages; Lainey is a recorded short or pet form.
- How do you pronounce Elaine?
- It depends on the language: in English /iːˈleɪn/ (Wiktionary); in Portuguese /elajɲi/. Transcriptions are machine-generated except where a dictionary is named.
- Is Elaine a male or female name?
- Elaine is a female name. National registers that list it by sex list it as female: Brazil (IBGE), United States (Census Bureau, 2020), Ecuador (INEC, 2024) and Spain (INE), among others.
- In which country does Elaine have the most bearers?
- In Brazil, the national register counted about 242 thousand people named Elaine, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled elaine.
- How common is the name Elaine?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 241,786 people named Elaine in 2022, about 1 in 876 residents.
- How common is Elaine compared with other names?
- In Brazil, Elaine is the 149th most common given name of 474,894 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Elaine?
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/elaineThe 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, “Elaine” — the 149th most common given name in Brazil. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.