Helios
A Greek name meaning the sun personified.
Name Census estimates that about 405 living Americans carry the first name Helios. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Helios today is around 8 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Helios births was 2022 (49 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Helios. 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 Helios with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
405
~ 1 in 846,307 Americans
Peak year
2022
49 babies that year
Average age
8
years old
2024 SSA rank
#2,881
Tracked since 2000
Census
Helios in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 245 people with the first name Helios, which placed it at #33,672 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
#33,672
National first-name rank
People counted
245
245 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
57.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Helios
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Helios is Hispanic at 57.6%. The next largest groups are White (21.2%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (10.2%). 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 Helios 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 Helios at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino57.6% · 141
- White21.2% · 52
- Asian and Pacific Islander10.2% · 25
- Two or more races5.3% · 13
- Black or African American2.9% · 7
- American Indian and Alaska Native2.9% · 7
Popularity
Helios: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Helios from the 2000s through to the 2020s, spanning 3 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2020s, with 203 total registrations. The name continues to be given at rates close to its all-time high, suggesting it has not yet fallen out of fashion.
Babies born per year
Decades
Helios 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 Helios during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Helios' live
The SSA's state-level files cover 3 states and territories. California, Texas, Arizona recorded the most babies named Helios, while Arizona, Texas, California recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 44 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Helios
Helios is a given name originating from Ancient Greek, deriving from the word 'helios' which means sun. The name was prominent across Ancient Greece during the classical antiquity period, associated with the deity Helios, the personification of the sun in Greek mythology.
The Ancient Greeks regarded Helios as the all-seeing 'Eye of the Universe', driving the sun chariot across the sky each day before returning to the east at night. Helios played a key role in many Greek myths, featuring in texts such as Homer's epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey.
One of the earliest recorded individuals named Helios was Helios of Byzantium, a Greek historian from the 5th century BC. Another early bearer was Helios of Chios, a philosopher and Platonist scholar from the 1st century AD.
Throughout history, the name Helios has been adopted by various notable figures. These include Helios Gama, a 16th century Portuguese soldier and explorer who contributed to the early mapping of islands in the Indian Ocean. Helios Pardos was a Greek rebel leader during the Greek War of Independence in the 1820s.
Other famous individuals named Helios include Helios Rafalidis, a 20th century Greek footballer who played as a striker, and Helios Codogno, an Italian architect from the late 19th century known for designing several buildings in Milan.
People
Helios + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Helios 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
Helios: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Helios?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 405 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Helios 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 846,307 US residents.
Is Helios a common name?
We classify Helios as "Very Rare". It ranks above 82.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 408 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Helios most popular?
The single biggest year for Helios was 2022, when 49 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Helios is about 8 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Helios in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 245 people with the name Helios, or 0.08 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #33,672 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 Helios 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 Helios?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Helios leans strongly male. 241 people counted with this name were male (98.8%), compared with 3 female bearers (1.2%). 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 Helios?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Helios is Hispanic at 57.6%. The next largest groups are White (21.2%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (10.2%). 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 Helios most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Helios in the 2020 Census, accounting for 57.6% (141 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 Helios in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Helios a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Helios 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 Helios still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Helios 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 Helios 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 are named Helios?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.