Nilsa
Feminine · “victory of the people”
Nilsa is a Scandinavian man's name with a Spanish ending, and it belongs mostly to Puerto Rico. Nils is how Sweden, Norway and Denmark say Nicholas; adding -a makes it a woman's name by the rules of Spanish rather than of Swedish. The route between those two facts runs through the Caribbean and is not as unlikely as it sounds.
How old is the name Nilsa?
Nilsa first appears in US birth records in 1946 — 79 years ago. The typical Nilsa alive today was born around 1966, making them about 59 years old. About 1,600 people named Nilsa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Nilsa most popular?
Nilsa peaked in 1960, reaching #1253 nationally. Today it ranks #14942, 13,689 places below that high. See the whole 1960 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Nikolaos to Nilsa
The story of Nilsa
Nicholas spread across Europe on the strength of a fourth-century bishop of Myra whose reputation for secret gift-giving eventually turned him into Santa Claus by way of Dutch. Scandinavian languages compressed the name hard, to Nils and Niels, and it became one of the most common men's names in the north. Puerto Rican naming, meanwhile, has drawn from an unusually wide pool — Spanish, English, French and occasionally Scandinavian sources, freely feminized with -a and -ita. Nilsa is a product of that openness, and it is far more common there than anywhere the name Nils is native.
Meaning
victory of the people
Greek Nikolaos joins nike, victory, with laos, the people — a name about a public triumph rather than a private one. Nicholas is its Latin form and Nils the Scandinavian contraction, which drops almost everything in the middle. The meaning survives all of it intact. The -a ending is Spanish and marks the name as a woman's without adding anything to the sense.
How the name formed
- Nikolaos
- Nicolaus
- Nils
- Nilsa
Related forms: Nils · Niels · Nicolasa · Nikolaos
Pronouncing Nilsa
NEEL-sah
NEEL-sah in Spanish, two syllables, stress at the front, both vowels full. English speakers produce NIL-suh with a short first vowel, which is a different sound. Swedish says Nils with a short vowel too, so the long e is the Spanish contribution.
Nicknames for Nilsa
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
- 1946
- Most girls named
- 195970 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1253reached in 1960
- Change vs 2024
- −37.5%5 in 2025, from 8
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.
Nilsa in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Nils in Swedish — related form
- Niels in Danish — related form
- Nicolasa in Spanish — related form
- Nikolaos in Greek — related form
Nilsas among us
people named Nilsa are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 321,453 born in 2025 was named Nilsa
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 Ellouise test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Nilsa's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Ellouise climbed just as high around 1922, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Ellouise's path sketches the road Nilsa is walking now.
Nilsa 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
Nilsa beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Nilsa in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Two syllables, phonetic in Spanish, and easy for an English speaker to approximate.
- The meaning is settled and comes from one of the most widely used names in Europe.
- It is unusual without being unfamiliar, since every part of it is recognizable.
- The first vowel is long in Spanish and short in English, so the name is said two ways in a bilingual life.
- Nilda and Ilsa are both close enough to be substituted, and both are more common in American records.
- The Scandinavian root is invisible to most people, so the name reads as Spanish and its history goes unmentioned.
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What they receive
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Nilsa
Feminine · #14942 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Nilsas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,600 people named Nilsa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Nilsa in 2025?
- Nilsa ranks #14942 among US girl names in 2025, with 5 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Nilsa?
- About 1 in every 321,453 US girls born in 2025 was named Nilsa — 5 in all.
- Will my child share the name Nilsa with classmates?
- Nilsa will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Nilsa
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Hester#14942 · Lyda#14942 · Zula#14942 · Zona#14942 · Ula#14942 · Belva#14942 · Lucetta#14942 · Leala#14942
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Nilsa? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Nilsa and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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