Griselda
Feminine · “grey battle”
Griselda is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 9,124 girls against 61 boys since 1880.
Griselda is a Germanic name of real antiquity and slightly forbidding parts — grey and battle — and it carries with it one of the strangest stories in medieval European literature.
How old is the name Griselda?
Griselda first appears in US birth records in 1906 — 119 years ago. The typical Griselda alive today was born around 1988, making them about 37 years old. About 8,800 people named Griselda are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Griselda most popular?
Griselda peaked in 1981, reaching #652 nationally. Today it ranks #3296, 2,644 places below that high. See the whole 1981 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Grishild to Griselda
The story of Griselda
The name existed in Germanic naming before it acquired its story. That story — of a peasant wife tested past all reason by her husband and never complaining — was told by Boccaccio, retold by Petrarch and then by Chaucer, and made patient Griselda a byword across Europe for several centuries. The name has been used in Italy, Spain and Latin America ever since, quite independently of what readers made of the tale.
Meaningscholars disagree
grey battle
The usual reading joins Germanic gris, grey, to hild, battle. The first element is sometimes read instead as a word for a mask or helmet, which would give a rather different sense; the second is not in doubt.
How the name formed
- Grishild
- Griselda
Related forms: Griselda · Griselda · Grishilde
Pronouncing Griselda
gri-ZEL-dah
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. Spanish gives a slightly softer z.
Nicknames for Griselda
Moderate
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
- 1906
- Most girls named
- 1990287 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #652reached in 1981
- Change vs 2023
- −7.8%47 in 2025, from 51
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.
Griselda in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Griselda in Italian — same name
- Griselda in Spanish — same name
- Grishilde in German — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Alabama.
Griseldas among us
people named Griselda are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 34,197 born in 2025 was named Griselda
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Griselda
- #3296
- Griselda on the 2025 chart
- #908
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Griselda went to 47 girls in 2025, but Grizelda is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 52, which makes it the 908th most-given girls’ name of the year — 2,388 places above the chart.
- Griselda47
- Grizelda5
About 1 girl in 30,909 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 34,197 for Griselda itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Starr test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Griselda's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Starr climbed just as high around 1948, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Starr's path sketches the road Griselda is walking now.
Griselda 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 Griselda is headed
Griselda 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.
Griselda beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Griselda in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A documented Germanic name with an unusually long literary record behind it.
- Zelda and Grisel are both complete names in their own right.
- It is very widely used in Latin America, so it has a real community behind it.
- The medieval story attached to the name is about extreme submission, and it is well enough known to follow it.
- In English the name sounds old and slightly severe to many ears.
- Griselda and Grisel are both used and relatives may prefer the shorter one.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Griselda
Feminine · #3296 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Griseldas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 8,800 people named Griselda are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Griselda?
- Griselda is the most-used spelling in US records — 47 of the 52 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Grizelda.
- How popular is the name Griselda in 2025?
- Griselda ranks #3296 among US girl names in 2025, with 47 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Griselda?
- About 1 in every 34,197 US girls born in 2025 was named Griselda — 47 in all.
- Will my child share the name Griselda with classmates?
- Griselda will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Griselda
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Neva#3296 · Aleyda#3296 · Kaylor#3296 · Nalia#3296 · Anyeli#3296 · Izabel#3296 · Esmee#3296 · Rhoda#3296
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Griselda? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Griselda and another name?
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Which one would you pick?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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