Else
given name · Danish · Latin script
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Else is a given name, most frequently recorded in Germany. It appears chiefly in Danish and German, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: nd. 'alder'; also from river names and plant names.
- DEGermany1 in 5.2K◐
- NLNetherlands1 in 5.4K
- USUnited States1 in 302K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈30K ●
- Sources
- 204 ●
- 1 in 450 ◐
across 12 countries
53K records
Official registry-verified
Denmark
Meaning & origin●
nd. 'alder'; also from river names and plant names
Sources 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Attested across 15 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DE Germany | #601 | 23,301 | 22K rec. | — | 2 | Else | 91 |
| DK Denmark | — | 13,047△ | 2 rec. | 1 in 450 | 13K | — | 4 |
| NO Norway | — | 8,307△ | 239 rec. | 1 in 658 | 21K | Else | 42 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 3,203△ | 819 rec. | 1 in 5.4K | 3.2K | Else | 51 |
| SE Sweden | — | 2,539△ | 90 rec. | 1 in 4K | 2.5K | Else | 17 |
| FI Finland | — | 1,380△ | 29 rec. | 1 in 4K | 3.2K | — | 6 |
| US United States | — | 1,101 | 22K rec. | 1 in 302K | 1.1K | Else | 204 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 825 | 2.6K rec. | — | listed | Else | 107 |
| AU Australia | — | 462 | 1.1K rec. | — | 1 | Else | 55 |
| CA Canada | — | 401 | 643 rec. | — | — | Else | 31 |
| BR Brazil | — | 388 | 0 rec. | 1 in 546K | 443 | Else | 2 |
| PH Philippines | — | 347 | 598 rec. | — | — | Else | 9 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- Danish60K35%
- German28K17%
- Norwegian Bokmål21K12%
- English17K10%
- Finnish11K7%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Danish | 59,728 | 35% |
| German | 27,969 | 17% |
| Norwegian Bokmål | 20,974 | 12% |
| English | 16,593 | 10% |
| Finnish | 10,996 | 7% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Other recorded senses●
Else 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 German, from Elisabeth, Hebrew 'my God is an oath'
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
In Swedish, Else är en form av → Elisabeth, särskilt vanlig i Norge och Danmark. I den finlandssvenska almanackan 14 oktober.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
In English, Hebrew; consecrated to God
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In German, weibl. Vom., Kurzform von
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
Pet form of ELISABETH.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
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●
Show as table
| Year | records |
|---|---|
| 1945 | 471 |
| 1946 | 462 |
| 1947 | 419 |
| 1948 | 417 |
| 1949 | 370 |
| 1950 | 350 |
| 1951 | 310 |
| 1952 | 352 |
| 1953 | 299 |
| 1954 | 255 |
| 1955 | 242 |
| 1956 | 243 |
| 1957 | 227 |
| 1958 | 154 |
| 1959 | 150 |
| 1960 | 146 |
| 1961 | 145 |
| 1962 | 138 |
| 1963 | 131 |
| 1964 | 124 |
| 1965 | 129 |
| 1966 | 96 |
| 1967 | 94 |
| 1968 | 104 |
| 1969 | 90 |
| 1970 | 50 |
| 1971 | 38 |
| 1972 | 56 |
| 1973 | 38 |
| 1974 | 39 |
| 1975 | 40 |
| 1976 | 33 |
| 1977 | 33 |
| 1978 | 35 |
| 1979 | 29 |
| 1980 | 21 |
| 1981 | 27 |
| 1982 | 31 |
| 1983 | 18 |
| 1984 | 22 |
| 1985 | 16 |
| 1986 | 20 |
| 1987 | 13 |
| 1988 | 23 |
| 1989 | 18 |
| 1990 | 12 |
| 1991 | 12 |
| 1992 | 15 |
| 1993 | 17 |
| 1994 | 16 |
| 1995 | 9 |
| 1996 | 15 |
| 1997 | 4 |
| 1998 | 9 |
| 1999 | 10 |
| 2000 | 7 |
| 2001 | 10 |
| 2002 | 14 |
| 2004 | 9 |
| 2005 | 5 |
| 2006 | 6 |
| 2007 | 8 |
| 2008 | 8 |
| 2009 | 11 |
| 2010 | 13 |
| 2011 | 17 |
| 2012 | 10 |
| 2013 | 18 |
| 2014 | 11 |
| 2015 | 12 |
| 2016 | 17 |
| 2017 | 21 |
| 2018 | 15 |
| 2019 | 16 |
| 2020 | 18 |
| 2021 | 22 |
| 2022 | 22 |
| 2023 | 27 |
| 2024 | 22 |
| 2025 | 24 |
NO SSB — Navn (1880–present) — 80 years between 1945–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Else Lasker-Schülerb. 1869DEJewish German poet (1869–1945)
- Elsa Einsteinb. 1876DEnot in their usual namesecond wife and cousin of Albert Einstein (1876-1936)
- Elsa Schiaparellib. 1890ITnot in their usual nameItalian fashion designer and couturier (1890–1973)
- Elsa Trioletb. 1896FRnot in their usual nameRussian-French writer (1896–1970)
- Elsa Lanchesterb. 1902GBnot in their usual nameBritish-American actress (1902–1986)
- Elsa Moranteb. 1912ITnot in their usual nameItalian novelist (1912–1985)
- Viveca Lindforsb. 1920SEnot in their usual nameSwedish actress (1920–1995)
- Elsa Zylbersteinb. 1968FRnot in their usual nameFrench actress
- Elsa Patakyb. 1976ESnot in their usual nameSpanish model and actress
- Elsa Hoskb. 1988SEnot in their usual nameSwedish fashion model
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 53 sources across 26 countries.
Reference works 4
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname 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 · 392 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Else?
- We estimate roughly 30 thousand people bear Else (counting its spellings and scripts) across 12 countries in our records.
- In which country does Else have the most bearers?
- Else is most frequently recorded in Germany, where it is most often spelled else.
- Where is Else most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Else is densest in Denmark — about 1 in 450 people — even though Germany holds more of our records for it.
- How common is Else compared with other names?
- In Germany, Else is the 601st most common given name of 154,506 given names recorded there.
- Is Else a male or female name?
- Else 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 Else mean?
- Recorded meaning: nd. 'alder'; also from river names and plant names
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/elseThe 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
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, “Else” — the 601st most common given name in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.