Ilena
Feminine
Ileana Cosanzeana is the heroine of Romanian folklore. She appears in dozens of tales as the princess the hero must rescue, and she is a genuinely distinctive figure: in several of them she rescues herself, or fights, or refuses.
How old is the name Ilena?
Ilena first appears in US birth records in 1915 — 110 years ago. The typical Ilena alive today was born around 1999, making them about 26 years old. About 600 people named Ilena are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Ilena most popular?
Ilena peaked in 1931, reaching #2307 nationally. Today it ranks #6838, 4,531 places below that high. See the whole 1931 chart.
Where it comes from
From Helene to Ilena
The story of Ilena
Romanian folklore has a small cast of recurring figures, and Ileana Cosanzeana is the principal heroine: beautiful, sought after, and in several tales considerably more active than the hero. She was collected by Petre Ispirescu in the nineteenth century, along with the rest of the Romanian tale corpus, and she is as familiar in Romania as Cinderella is in the West. The name Ileana is accordingly one of the most-used Romanian women's names, and Ilena is a variant of it and of Elena. It reached United States records with Romanian and Italian families, with a best year of 1931.
Meaningscholars disagree
Not established
Ileana is the Romanian form of Helen, from Greek Helene, whose own meaning has never been established; proposals include a word for a torch and a connection to the moon goddess Selene. Ilena is a spelling variant of Ileana or of Elena. The epithet Cosanzeana in the folk tales is itself unexplained.
How the name formed
- Helene
- Elena
- Ileana
- Ilena
Related forms: Ileana · Elena · Ilona · Elena
Pronouncing Ilena
ee-LEH-nah
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. Romanian Ileana has four, ee-leh-AH-nah, with the weight on the third.
Nicknames for Ilena
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
- 1915
- Most girls named
- 200822 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2307reached in 1931
- Change vs 2023
- −11.1%16 in 2025, from 18
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.
Ilena in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ileana in Romanian — related form
- Elena in Spanish — related form
- Ilona in Hungarian — related form
- Elena in Italian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas.
Ilenas among us
people named Ilena are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 100,454 born in 2025 was named Ilena
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 Robbye test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Ilena's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Robbye climbed just as high around 1913, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Robbye's path sketches the road Ilena is walking now.
Ilena 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
Ilena beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Ilena in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A memorable folk heroine and one of the largest name families in Europe behind it.
- Lena is a ready short form used across half the continent.
- Five letters and no spelling difficulty.
- Elena and Ileana are both more common and are said differently.
- The underlying Greek name has no recoverable meaning.
- It reads as an older generation's name in Romania.
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What they receive
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Ilena
Feminine · #6838 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Ilenas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Ilena are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Ilena in 2025?
- Ilena ranks #6838 among US girl names in 2025, with 16 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Ilena?
- About 1 in every 100,454 US girls born in 2025 was named Ilena — 16 in all.
- Will my child share the name Ilena with classmates?
- Ilena will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Ilena
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Malana#6838 · Jeannie#6838 · Maxie#6838 · Nicol#6838 · Chaney#6838 · Keana#6838 · Concetta#6838 · Pheobe#6838
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Ilena? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Ilena and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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