Yolande
Feminine
Yolande is the French form of a medieval name that appears across Europe as Violante, Iolanda and Jolanda, and the connection everybody reaches for is not established. The name looks like the Latin and Italian word for a violet and probably is not from it; the resemblance is close enough to have generated a story and not close enough to have been proved.
How old is the name Yolande?
Yolande first appears in US birth records in 1902 — 123 years ago. The typical Yolande alive today was born around 1949, making them about 76 years old. About 900 people named Yolande are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Yolande most popular?
Yolande peaked in 1929, reaching #1282 nationally. See the whole 1929 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From A medieval name of unsettled origin to Yolande
The story of Yolande
One bearer is worth setting down because her situation is so extreme. Yolande of Jerusalem inherited a crown at eleven from a kingdom that had lost Jerusalem itself forty years earlier and was ruled from Acre. She was married at thirteen to the Holy Roman Emperor, who took the title of king of Jerusalem for himself immediately and left her with nothing but the claim she had brought. She was crowned, kept in his household, and died at sixteen a few days after giving birth to a son who inherited both her claim and her father's quarrel with the papacy. The kingdom she was queen of was a coastal strip and a name. Medieval royal women turn up in the record mostly as instruments of somebody else's title, and this is one of the clearest and shortest examples of it.
Meaningnot established
Not established
The violet reading is the standard one in name books and is a guess. It rests on the resemblance to Violante, which is itself of uncertain origin, and the medieval spellings do not behave the way a name derived from that word should. A Germanic source has also been proposed and is no better supported. The honest answer is that the name is genuinely medieval, genuinely widespread, and genuinely unexplained, and the flower is decoration added afterwards.
How the name formed
- A medieval name of unsettled origin
- Violante, Iolanda and Yolande across Europe
- Carried by French and Belgian families to America
- Yolanda as the commoner American spelling
Related forms: Yolande · Iolanda · Yolanda · Jolan
Pronouncing Yolande
yoh-LAHND
Two syllables in French, with the final e silent and the stress at the back. American families often say it as three, yoh-LAHN-duh, treating it as the Spanish form, and both readings are in use here.
Nicknames for Yolande
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
- 1902
- Most girls named
- 195238 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1282reached in 1929
- Change vs 1993
- 0.0%5 in 1997, 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.
Yolande in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Yolande in French — same name
- Iolanda in Italian — same name
- Yolanda in Spanish — same name
- Jolan in Hungarian — related form
Yolandes among us
people named Yolande 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
Yolande 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 a genuine medieval European name with a continuous record across several countries.
- The French form is more distinctive than the Spanish one while being no harder to say.
- It has real historical bearers, and their stories are worth telling.
- The final e will be dropped or pronounced depending on who is reading it, and both are defensible.
- It will be written Yolanda by most Americans, which is a different form of the same name.
- There is no established meaning, and the violet story is a guess that has hardened into a fact.
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Yolande
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Yolandes are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 900 people named Yolande are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Yolande in 2025?
- Yolande is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Yolande with classmates?
- Yolande will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More Y names
The most-given names starting with Y, all years combined.
Yvonne#2051 · Yolanda#3211 · Yvette#1622 · Yesenia#1896 · Yasmin#955 · Yasmine#1183 · Yaretzi#670 · Yadira#3832
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Yolande? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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