Nellie
A diminutive form of the feminine name Eleanor, meaning "bright, shining one".
Name Census estimates that about 22,376 living Americans carry the first name Nellie. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Nellie today is around 60 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Nellie births was 1918 (4,057 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Nellie. 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 Nellie with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Nellie is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 593 boys registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
22K
~ 1 in 15,318 Americans
Peak year
1918
4,057 babies that year
Average age
60
years old
1947 SSA rank
#521
Tracked since 1880
Census
Nellie in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 26,254 people with the first name Nellie, which placed it at #1,355 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
#1,355
National first-name rank
People counted
26K
26,254 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
8.7
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
59.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Nellie
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Nellie is White at 59.6%. The next largest groups are Black (17.0%) and Hispanic (15.1%). 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 Nellie 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 Nellie at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White59.6% · 15,655
- Black or African American17.0% · 4,476
- Hispanic or Latino15.1% · 3,972
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.5% · 920
- Two or more races2.4% · 635
- American Indian and Alaska Native2.3% · 596
Gender
Gender distribution for Nellie
Out of the 152,715 babies given the name Nellie since 1880, 99.6% were registered as female. The name sits firmly on the female side of the spectrum, with only a handful of male registrations across the entire dataset.
Nellie as a male name
- Ranked #3,635 in 1947
- 6 male births in 1947
- Peak: 1924 (19 births)
Nellie as a female name
- Ranked #521 in 2024
- 591 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1918 (4,048 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Nellie appears almost entirely female. Of the 26,255 people counted with this name, 99.8% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Nellie: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Nellie from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1910s, with 30,968 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1910s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Nellie 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 Nellie during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Nellies live
The SSA's state-level files cover 50 states and territories. North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama recorded the most babies named Nellie, while Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 2,003 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Nellie
The name Nellie is an English diminutive of the name Eleanor, which itself derives from the Occitan name Alia(u)nor. This name's roots can be traced back to the Provençal phrase "alia anor," meaning "the other Aenor." Aenor is derived from the Germanic name Aenor, comprising the elements "ađal" (noble) and "rik" (ruler).
Nellie emerged as a common diminutive form of Eleanor in the 19th century, particularly in the United States and Britain. One of the earliest recorded bearers of the name Nellie was Nellie Melba, an Australian operatic soprano born in 1861. Her real name was Helen Porter Mitchell, but she took the stage name Nellie Melba, combining her nickname and her hometown of Melbourne.
Another notable Nellie was Nellie Bly, the pioneering American journalist born Elizabeth Jane Cochran in 1864. She was best known for her record-breaking trip around the world in 72 days, inspired by Jules Verne's novel Around the World in Eighty Days. Bly's daring exploits and her investigative reporting work helped establish her as one of the leading female journalists of her time.
In the realm of literature, Nellie is the name of one of the main characters in Charles Dickens' novel The Haunted House, published in 1859. The character Nellie is a young woman who tells the story of the haunted house to her friends.
In the world of sports, Nellie Fox was an American baseball player who played for the Chicago White Sox in the 1950s and 1960s. He was born Jacob Nelson Fox in 1927 and was nicknamed "Nellie" due to his diminutive stature. Fox was an outstanding second baseman and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1997.
Another notable Nellie was Nellie Tayloe Ross, an American politician who served as the 14th governor of Wyoming from 1925 to 1927. Born in 1876, she was the first woman to be elected governor of a U.S. state and paved the way for future women in politics.
People
Nellie + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Nellie as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with N
Other first names starting with N with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Nellie: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Nellie?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 22,376 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Nellie 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 15,318 US residents.
Is Nellie a common name?
We classify Nellie as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98.6% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 152,715 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Nellie most popular?
The single biggest year for Nellie was 1918, when 4,057 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Nellie is about 60 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Nellie in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 26,254 people with the name Nellie, or 8.69 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,355 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 Nellie 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 Nellie?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Nellie appears almost entirely female. Of the 26,255 people counted with this name, 99.8% were female and only a very small share were male. 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 Nellie?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Nellie is White at 59.6%. The next largest groups are Black (17.0%) and Hispanic (15.1%). 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 Nellie most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Nellie in the 2020 Census, accounting for 59.6% (15,655 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 Nellie in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Nellie a female name?
Yes, 99.6% of people registered as Nellie in the SSA data are female. 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 Nellie still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Nellie 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 Nellie 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 Nellie?
Want to know how many Americans are named Nellie? HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, puts the living-bearer count front and centre.