Belen
Feminine · “Bethlehem”
Belen is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 12,287 girls against 79 boys since 1880.
Belen is the Spanish name for Bethlehem, carried into the given-name tradition through the Marian title Nuestra Señora de Belén. It has been on US records for well over a century, arriving with Spanish-speaking families and staying — quietly present in every decade since, strongest in California, Texas and Florida. Two syllables, the stress landing on the second, and every letter doing exactly what it looks like it does.
How old is the name Belen?
Belen first appears in US birth records in 1909 — 116 years ago. The typical Belen alive today was born around 2006, making them about 19 years old. About 11,500 people named Belen are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Belen most popular?
Belen peaked in 2024, reaching #671 nationally. Today it ranks #785, 114 places below that high. See the whole 2024 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Beit Lehem to Belen
The story of Belen
Bethlehem traveled a long way to become Belen: from Hebrew Beit Lehem through the Greek and Latin of the Bible into Spanish, where the sound wore down to two syllables. As a personal name it belongs to the Spanish habit of naming daughters after titles of the Virgin Mary — Belén sits beside Rosario, Pilar and Carmen in that tradition. In Spanish, el belén is also the nativity scene set out at Christmas, so the word lives a double life as both name and household object. Portuguese kept a nasal ending instead, Belém, which named a district of Lisbon and later a city on the Amazon; the same word landed on the map of New Mexico as Belen in the eighteenth century.
Meaning
Bethlehem — literally 'house of bread' in Hebrew
Belén is simply how the town's name came into Spanish. The Hebrew Beit Lehem behind it is read as 'house of bread'; the name reached Spanish girls not from the town directly but from devotion to the Virgin of Bethlehem.
How the name formed
- Beit Lehem
- Bethleem
- Belén
- Belen
Related forms: Belén · Belém · Betlem · Bethlehem · Beit Lehem · Vithleem
Pronouncing Belen
beh-LEN
Stress falls on the second syllable in Spanish, which the accent in Belén marks. Written without the accent, English speakers often shift it to BELL-en; both are heard in the US, and families usually settle it in the first week.
Nicknames for Belen
High
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1909
- Most girls named
- 2016374 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #671reached in 2024
- Change vs 2023
- +6.8%345 in 2025, from 323
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Belen in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Belén in Spanish — spelling variant
- Belém in Portuguese — related form
- Betlem in Catalan — related form
- Bethlehem in English — related form
- Beit Lehem in Hebrew — transliteration
- Vithleem in Greek — transliteration
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Belens among us
people named Belen are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 4,659 born in 2025 was named Belen
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Jeana test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Belen's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Jeana climbed just as high around 1971, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jeana's path sketches the road Belen is walking now.
Belen sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Belen is headed
Belen should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Belen beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Belen in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled the way it sounds in both English and Spanish, with no silent letters and no competing variants to correct.
- Works unchanged across the Spanish-speaking world, and has a documented Portuguese cousin in Belém.
- Established short forms already exist — Bel and Belu — rather than needing to be invented.
- A recorded history in the US stretching back more than a century, without ever becoming a crowded classroom name.
- The accent in Belén usually disappears in US paperwork, and with it the cue to stress the second syllable. Expect to correct BELL-in fairly often, in English-speaking settings especially.
- It sits close to Belle, Bella and Helen by ear, so mishearings on the phone are likely.
- In Spain, ¡vaya belén! is colloquial for a muddle or commotion — an association Spanish speakers may notice, though it has never dented the name's steady use.
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What they receive
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Belen
Feminine · #785 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Belens are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 11,500 people named Belen are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Belen in 2025?
- Belen ranks #785 among US girl names in 2025, with 345 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Belen?
- About 1 in every 4,659 US girls born in 2025 was named Belen — 345 in all.
- Will my child share the name Belen with classmates?
- Belen will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Belen
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Ocean#785 · Journi#785 · Janiyah#783 · Paulina#783 · Elouise#788 · Klarity#788 · Royalty#782 · Emiliana#788
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Belen? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Belen and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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