Olinda
Feminine
Olinda is a city on a hill in north-eastern Brazil, and for a century it was the richest sugar town in the Portuguese empire. Then the Dutch arrived, burned it to the ground, and built their own capital on the swampy ground below — which is why the beautiful town is up the hill and the working port is down at the water to this day.
How old is the name Olinda?
Olinda first appears in US birth records in 1884 — 141 years ago. The typical Olinda alive today was born around 1935, making them about 90 years old. About 400 people named Olinda are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Olinda most popular?
Olinda peaked in 1895, reaching #893 nationally. See the whole 1895 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From a hill town founded in Pernambuco in the 1530s to Olinda
The story of Olinda
The Dutch West India Company took Pernambuco in 1630 and found Olinda indefensible — a hill town of churches and merchants' houses with no harbor worth the name. They burned it the following year and moved down to the reef, where they built a proper port with canals, the first synagogue in the Americas, and a Calvinist administration that lasted a quarter of a century. When the Portuguese took the province back, the port stayed the capital and the hill town stayed in ruins for decades. Olinda was rebuilt slowly, in the same baroque style, and is now a world heritage site chiefly because it never became important again.
Meaningnot established
Not established
The city has a charming origin story attached to it and no evidence for it. As a woman's name Olinda appears in Portuguese, Spanish and Italian romance literature before it appears in American records, and it may equally be a form of Olga, of Rosalinda cut short, or of Yolanda. An American family using it in the 1880s could have taken it from a novel, from a Portuguese-speaking neighbor or from the sound alone, and the record does not distinguish.
How the name formed
- a hill town founded in Pernambuco in the 1530s
- burned by the Dutch and replaced by the port below
- the name appears in Iberian romance literature
- used in American records from the 1880s
- out of use before the middle of the last century
Related forms: Olinda · Olinda · Olinda
Pronouncing Olinda
oh-LIN-duh
Three syllables with the weight in the middle, in Portuguese and in English alike. It is one of the few names in the record that every language reads the same way.
Nicknames for Olinda
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
- 1884
- Most girls named
- 195429 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #893reached in 1895
- Change vs 2013
- +60.0%8 in 2017, from 5
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.
Olinda in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Olinda in Portuguese — same name
- Olinda in Spanish — same name
- Olinda in Italian — same name
Olindas among us
people named Olinda are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Olinda sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- It is read correctly at sight in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian.
- Lindy is waiting inside it as a warm and thoroughly usable short form.
- It has a real and dramatic place behind it rather than an invented one.
- It will be heard as Melinda, Belinda and Linda by almost everyone.
- There is no established meaning and the story usually told about the city's name is a later invention.
- The name has been out of American use for three generations.
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Olinda
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Olindas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 400 people named Olinda are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Olinda in 2025?
- Olinda is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Olinda with classmates?
- Olinda will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More O names
The most-given names starting with O, all years combined.
Olivia#1 · Opal#423 · Olive#197 · Olga#3167 · Ollie#2276 · Ora#3712 · Ola#7885 · Ophelia#264
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Olinda? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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