Helina
Feminine · “Not established”
Helina is how Helen is said in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church has kept Greek names in its own forms for sixteen centuries — Helina, Marta, Yohannes, Gebre — and they are ordinary Ethiopian names now, not borrowings anyone thinks about.
How old is the name Helina?
Helina first appears in US birth records in 1973 — 52 years ago. The typical Helina alive today was born around 2007, making them about 18 years old. About 500 people named Helina are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Helina most popular?
Helina peaked in 2002, reaching #5444 nationally. Today it ranks #7491, 2,047 places below that high. See the whole 2002 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Helenē to Helina
The story of Helina
Ethiopian Christianity dates to the fourth century, when the Kingdom of Aksum adopted it, and it has maintained its own liturgical language, calendar and saints ever since. The name stock reflects that: Greek and biblical names arrived early and were reshaped by Ge'ez and Amharic phonology rather than by Latin or English, so Ethiopia has Yohannes for John, Giyorgis for George, Marta for Martha, and Helina for Helen. Helena, the mother of Constantine and the finder of the True Cross in legend, is venerated across the Orthodox world, which is why her name traveled so widely. The American figures for Helina peak in 2002, with Ethiopian and Eritrean immigration.
Meaningnot established
Not established — a Greek name of unrecovered origin
Helen has no secure etymology. The commonly repeated readings — torch, light, the shining one — rest on a link to Greek helenē, a torch, or to hēlios, the sun, and neither is established; the name may be pre-Greek, from the language spoken in the Aegean before Greek arrived. Helina is the Amharic and Tigrinya form. Separately, Helina is used in Estonia and Finland as a form of Helena, and as a modern respelling in America.
How the name formed
- Helenē
- Helena
- Helina
Related forms: ሔሊና · Helena · Helinä
Pronouncing Helina
heh-LEE-nah
Three syllables, stress on the second, with the h clearly sounded. English speakers sometimes say huh-LEEN-uh or HEL-in-uh; the Ethiopian and Finnish forms both keep the h strong.
Nicknames for Helina
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
- 1973
- Most girls named
- 200522 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #5444reached in 2002
- Change vs 2024
- +27.3%14 in 2025, from 11
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.
Helina in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- ሔሊና in Amharic — transliteration
- Helena in English — related form
- Helinä in Finnish — same name
Helinas among us
people named Helina are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 114,805 born in 2025 was named Helina
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 Perrin test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Helina's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Perrin climbed just as high around 1969, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Perrin's path sketches the road Helina is walking now.
Helina 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
Helina beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Helina in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Lina and Heli are ready short forms with independent lives.
- It is soft, three syllables and easy to say in English.
- It connects to one of the most widely used names in the Orthodox world.
- The meaning of Helen is genuinely unknown, despite the readings often given.
- Helena and Halina are more familiar in America and will be substituted.
- The stress placement varies between English speakers.
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What they receive
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Helina
Feminine · #7491 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Helinas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 500 people named Helina are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Helina in 2025?
- Helina ranks #7491 among US girl names in 2025, with 14 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Helina?
- About 1 in every 114,805 US girls born in 2025 was named Helina — 14 in all.
- Will my child share the name Helina with classmates?
- Helina will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Helina
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Christie#7491 · Carmelita#7491 · Jetta#7491 · Hildegard#7491 · Rickie#7491 · Billy#7491 · Angelyn#7491 · Jewell#7491
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Helina? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Helina and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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