Belen

given name · Spanish · Latin script

Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Belen is a given name, most frequently recorded in Argentina, where it is the 33rd most common given name. It appears chiefly in Spanish and English, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Spanish form of Bethlehem.

rarermore common
  • ARArgentina1 in 194◐
  • PYParaguay1 in 365
  • UYUruguay1 in 382

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈53K ●

across 8 countries

#525 ●

of 16M given names

Sources
317 ●

2.0M records

Official registry-verified

1 in 1.5K ◐

Spain

Spellings & scripts●

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Bethlehem in US United States, CR Costa Rica, NZ New Zealand, Belén in SV El Salvador, CO Colombia, FR France and Belem in BR Brazil, PT Portugal.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin●

Spanish form of Bethlehem

Sources 1

  • Baby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…

Attested across 15 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Belen is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
AR Argentina#333,529,3351.4M rec.—4.5KBelen145
CL Chile#98193,81314K rec.—247Belen108
MX Mexico#340110,26683K rec.—202Belen163
PY Paraguay#2886,33443K rec.——Belen46
VE Venezuela#37967,03335K rec.——Belen47
PE Peru#50758,86133K rec.——Belen72
UY Uruguay#3749,33641K rec.—1Belen62
PH Philippines#48645,14989K rec.—listedBelen87
ES Spain#7634,039179K rec.1 in 1.5K34KBelen203
US United States—13,15485K rec.1 in 25K13KBethlehem317
EC Ecuador#9975,380△1.8K rec.1 in 3.1K5.4KBelen73
AU Australia—2,3752.6K rec.—1Belen58

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • Spanish4.6M94%
  • English81K2%
  • Croatian39K1%
  • Catalan34K1%
  • Portuguese22K1%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
Spanish4,572,36594%
English80,8012%
Croatian39,0381%
Catalan34,0801%
Portuguese22,3831%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Belen is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Catalan given name42K records spelled Belen3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Spain, France, United States, Philippines

    Languages: Catalan, French

    Also written Belén

  • Croatian given name40K records spelled Belen50 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Spain, United States, Argentina, Paraguay

    Languages: Croatian, Bulgarian, Serbian

    Also written Belén, Bohlen, Bollen, Белен, Beelen

  • Lao given name8.7K records spelled Belen24 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Laos, Chile, Spain, United States

    Languages: Lao, Thai

    Also written Belén, Belèn, Bëlën, Bélén, Bélen

  • a separate given name6.8K records spelled Belen5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Spain, Ecuador, United Kingdom

    Also written Belén, Bélen, Bélèn, Belèn

63 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Belen is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In Catalan, third-person plural present indicative of belar

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In English, Alternative spelling of Blin.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Hungarian, superessive singular of bél

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Norwegian Nynorsk, definite singular of bel

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Filipino, nativity scene

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Over time●

0200400600192019401960198020002020431 · 2024

Show as table
Belen in SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present), United States, 1909–2025
Yearrecords
19098
19107
19128
191311
19146
19157
191615
191714
191818
191922
192024
192125
192220
192323
192428
192529
192635
192724
192829
192935
193021
193125
193223
193325
193419
193529
193624
193723
193821
193922
194022
194115
194221
194323
194417
194513
194626
194730
194822
194932
195036
195135
195225
195331
195424
195536
195622
195737
195823
195927
196041
196137
196233
196331
196437
196524
196632
196734
196825
196932
197040
197147
197246
197355
197440
197542
197666
197742
197867
197946
198062
198174
198292
198380
198473
198581
198673
198789
1988109
1989116
1990127
1991108
1992141
1993136
1994113
1995150
1996157
1997183
1998185
1999171
2000229
2001214
2002292
2003267
2004276
2005247
2006288
2007331
2008321
2009312
2010305
2011286
2012273
2013283
2014266
2015296
2016374
2017368
2018341
2019316
2020303
2021336
2022390
2023323
2024431
2025345

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 116 years between 1909–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

1960197019801990Belén Rodríguez Palomino, b. 1962Belén Gopegui, b. 1963Belén Rueda, b. 1965Belén López, b. 1970Belén Atienza Azcona, b. 1970Belén Fabra, b. 1977Belén Blanco, b. 1977Belén Cuesta, b. 1984Belén Rodríguez, b. 1984Belén Funes, b. 1984

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence●

Attested in 66 sources across 36 countries.

Official registers attesting Belen
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
ES SpainINE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—34K#126
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—34K#229
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202013K#2,038
EC EcuadorINEC — civil registry names20245.4K#332
AR ArgentinaRENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national)—4.5K—
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020201.8K#15,541
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020101.4K#19,646
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020001.2K#20,382
AR ArgentinaRENAPER — Nombres de nacimientos (2012–present)20241K#144
ES SpainINE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—667#6,319
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—667#6,319
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)2025345—

Reference works 5

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 639 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Belen?
We estimate roughly 53 thousand people bear Belen (counting its spellings and scripts) across 8 countries in our records.
In which country does Belen have the most bearers?
Belen is most frequently recorded in Argentina, where it is most often spelled belen.
How common is Belen compared with other names?
In Argentina, Belen is the 33rd most common given name of 517,176 given names recorded there.
Is Belen a male or female name?
Belen is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
What does the name Belen mean?
Recorded meaning: Spanish form of Bethlehem
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/belen

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.

About this data

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Belen” — the 33rd most common given name in Argentina. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Belen parses inside a full name →