Yelena
given name · Latin script
Meaning: A transliteration of the Bulgarian, Macedonian, or Russian female given name Еле́на (Eléna), equivalent to Helen
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈjɛɫɪnə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Yelena is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Russia than in any other country, where it is the 2nd most common given name.
- RURussia≈1 in 30as Елена(inferred from the name graph)
- BYBelarus≈1 in 35as Елена
- GRGreece1 in 39as Ελένη
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 Yelena 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.
- Russia (inferred from the name graph)
- #2 (measured from records)
- 10 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 644 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 30 (inferred from the name graph)
≈4,700,000 named Елена, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Russia, est., as Елена
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
20 other spellings are counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Елена in RU Russia, BY Belarus, FI Finland, Helen in US United States, Олена in UA Ukraine and Helena in BR Brazil.
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)
A transliteration of the Bulgarian, Macedonian, or Russian female given name Еле́на (Eléna), equivalent to Helen.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 26 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Yelena 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RU Russia | #2 | ≈4,700,000 est. | ≈1 in 30 | #3 | Елена | 309 |
| UA Ukraine | #2 | ≈1,100,000 est. | ≈1 in 41 | listed | Олена | 174 |
| BR Brazil | #17 | 366,186as Helena | 1 in 578 | 366K | Helena | 227 |
| US United States | #26 | 284,872as Alan | 1 in 1.2K | 483K | Helen | 644 |
| GR Greece | #9 | 272,590as Ελένη | 1 in 39 | 520K | Ελενη | 198 |
| BY Belarus | #1 | ≈270,000 est. | ≈1 in 35 | 39 | Елена | 81 |
| FI Finland | #1 | 117,524as Helena | 1 in 47 | 175K | Елена | 116 |
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: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); ELSTAT — population given names; According to a survey conducted by the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT), the most popular male and female names i; Universal Dependencies Belarusian-HSE Corpus — Person Names (UD_Belarusian-HSE); DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup). 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)
Yelena is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, Russian; 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…
In German, weibl. Vom., englische Schreibweise von
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
Russian form of HELEN . Pet form: Nelya .
as a word
In awk, moon
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- Elena Stasovab. 1873RUnot in their usual nameRussian revolutionary, soviet politician (1873–1966)
- Alena Apinab. 1964RUnot in their usual nameSoviet and Russian actress,singer
- Elena Podkaminskayab. 1979RUnot in their usual nameRussian actress
- Elena Lyadovab. 1980RUnot in their usual nameRussian actress
- Elena Dementievab. 1981RUnot in their usual nameRussian tennis player
- Yelena Isinbayevab. 1982RURussian female Olympic pole-vaulter
- Lena Katinab. 1984RUnot in their usual nameRussian singer, member of the duo t.A.T.u
- Jelena Jankovićb. 1985RSnot in their usual nameSerbian tennis player
- Gigi Hadidb. 1995USnot in their usual nameAmerican fashion model and television personality (born 1995)
- Elena Rybakinab. 1999RUnot in their usual nameKazakhstani tennis player
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)
Attested in 63 sources across 38 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 11K | #2,277 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 113 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 113 | #37,868 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 112 | — |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 46 | #6,198 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 21 | — |
| FI Finland | DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register) | — | 16 | — |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 15 | #36,818 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 13 | #2,277 |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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
- How do you pronounce Yelena?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈjɛɫɪnə/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Yelena mean, and where does it come from?
- A transliteration of the Bulgarian, Macedonian, or Russian female given name Еле́на (Eléna), equivalent to Helen. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- What are other forms of the name Yelena?
- In the etymology graph, Elena, Helen and Elaine are forms of the same name in other languages; Lena and Alyona are recorded short or pet forms.
- How common is the name Yelena?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 366,186 people named Helena in 2022, about 1 in 578 residents.
- How common is Yelena compared with other names?
- In Russia, Yelena is the 2nd most common given name of 472,143 given names recorded there.
- Is Yelena a male or female name?
- Yelena is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- In which country does Yelena have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 4.7 million people named Елена in Russia, more than in any other country we hold.
What do you want to know about Yelena?
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/yelenaThe 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, “Yelena” — the 2nd most common given name in Russia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.