How Many People Are Named Nelly?
people named Nelly are alive in the United States today (estimate)
About 1 in 49,029 people in the US has this name
Based on 7,871 babies named Nelly in Social Security records from 1882 to 2025, and the share of each birth year still alive in 2025.
Popularity Rank
💎💎 Very Rare
Peak Year
213 births
Trend
Stable (last 10 years)
📖 Name Origin & Meaning
Meaning:
Diminutive of NELL.
Source of the meaning, origin, pronunciation and related names: Behind the Name.
Same Sound, Other Spellings
These names are pronounced like Nelly in English. Counting Nelly and these spellings together, about 32,798 people alive in the US have the name.
⚧ Gender Distribution
Of the babies given the name Nelly, 98.9% were girls and 1.1% were boys. The share has stayed close to this since the 1910s: 100% of the babies were girls then and 96.8% in the 2020s.
👥 Age Distribution
The average person named Nelly alive today is about 28 years old, and 60% are under 30. Half of them were between 12 and 41 in 2025.
📈 Popularity Over Time
Nelly first appears in the records in 1882 and was given most often in 2007, to 213 babies. In 2025, 182 babies got the name.
Babies given the name each year, 1882 to 2025
🏆 Rank History
Nelly has never been one of the 100 most popular girls' names. Its best rank was #625, in 1882. In 2025 it ranked #1,294.
| Girls | |
|---|---|
| Rank in 2025 | #1,294 |
| Best rank | #625 (1882) |
| Years in the top 100 | None |
| Rank in its biggest decade | #1,363 in the 2000s |
📍 State-Wise Distribution
People named Nelly alive today, by the state where they were born (estimate; state records start in 1910).
More people named Nelly were born in California than in any other state: about 1,778 of those alive today. Compared with the national rate in the same years, Nelly was given 2.7 times as often in California, 2.7 times in New York and 2.4 times in Texas.
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