Helio
Of Greek origin, meaning "sun".
Name Census estimates that about 321 living Americans carry the first name Helio. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Helio today is around 17 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Helio births was 2008 (26 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Helio. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Helio with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
321
~ 1 in 1,067,771 Americans
Peak year
2008
26 babies that year
Average age
17
years old
2024 SSA rank
#7,393
Tracked since 1972
Census
Helio in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,090 people with the first name Helio, which placed it at #11,669 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#11,669
National first-name rank
People counted
1.1K
1,090 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
46.2% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Helio
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Helio is Hispanic at 46.2%. The next largest groups are White (41.1%) and Black (6.1%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Helio described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Helio at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino46.2% · 504
- White41.1% · 448
- Black or African American6.1% · 67
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.8% · 41
- Two or more races2.2% · 24
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.6% · 6
Popularity
Helio: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Helio from the 1970s through to the 2020s, spanning 6 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 113 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Helio remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Helio by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Helio during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Helios live
Origin
Meaning and history of Helio
The given name Helio has its origins in Greek mythology and language. It derives from the Greek word 'helios', meaning 'sun'. The name was used in ancient Greece to refer to the personification of the sun, the powerful god Helios.
The name Helio first appeared in Greek texts and stories dating back to the 8th century BC. Helios was an important deity in Greek religion, associated with light, warmth, and the cycle of the seasons. Depictions of Helios as a handsome, radiant god driving a chariot drawn by fiery horses can be found on ancient Greek pottery and artwork.
One of the earliest recorded uses of the name Helio was in the 5th century BC, when the Greek astronomer Helio of Alexandria made significant contributions to the field of astronomy and proposed a model of the universe with the sun at the center, rather than the Earth.
In the 16th century, the Italian scientist Galileo Galilei, born in 1564, made groundbreaking discoveries about the sun and the solar system, further cementing the name's association with astronomy and scientific progress.
Other notable historical figures with the name Helio include Helio Sebastiani (1782-1857), a French military leader who fought in the Napoleonic Wars, and Helio Gracie (1913-2009), a Brazilian martial artist and co-founder of the influential Gracie Jiu-Jitsu school.
Helio Lobo (1920-2009) was a respected Brazilian architect and urban planner, while Helio Castroneves (born 1975) is a successful Brazilian race car driver who has won the Indianapolis 500 four times.
Throughout history, the name Helio has been associated with the sun, light, and the pursuit of knowledge and understanding, making it a powerful and meaningful choice for parents.
People
Helio + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Helio as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with H
Other first names starting with H with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Helio: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Helio?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 321 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Helio going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 1,067,771 US residents.
Is Helio a common name?
We classify Helio as "Very Rare". It ranks above 80% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 326 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Helio most popular?
The single biggest year for Helio was 2008, when 26 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Helio is about 17 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Helio in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,090 people with the name Helio, or 0.36 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #11,669 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Helio in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Helio?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Helio appears almost entirely male. Of the 1,088 people counted with this name, 99.4% were male and only a very small share were female. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Helio?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Helio is Hispanic at 46.2%. The next largest groups are White (41.1%) and Black (6.1%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Helio most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Helio in the 2020 Census, accounting for 46.2% (504 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Helio in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Helio a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Helio in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Helio still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Helio in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Helio can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people have the name Helio?
If you just want to know how many people have the name Helio, HowManyOfMe.org gives you the headline number in one glance.