Helle

Spellings & scripts●

Locally spelled Hill in US United States, CA Canada, AU Australia and 15 more and ทะเล in TH Thailand.

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●

Attested across 22 languages in the etymology graph.

Languages●

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◐

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

• English given name22K records spelled Helle11 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in United States, Germany, Denmark, Australia

  Languages: English, German, Western Frisian

  Also written Héllè, Hellē, Hellê, Hellé, Hellë

• Portuguese given name5.2K records spelled Helle5 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Brazil, United States, Spain, Norway

  Languages: Portuguese, Spanish

  Also written Hellê, Hellē

• a separate given name1.1K records spelled Helle5 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in United States, Norway, Estonia, Sweden

  Also written Hellé, Héllé, Hellê, Hellē

• a separate given name825 records spelled Helle2 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Norway, United States, Sweden, United Kingdom

  Also written Hellé

51 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●

Helle 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.

• from Old Norse hella ‘flat stone’, ‘flagstone’, ‘flat mountain’ or hellir ‘cave’. As a Nowegian name this is generally a habitational name from any of numerous farmsteads so named. As a Swedish name, it is generally ornamental.

  as a name·Dictionary of American Family Names

• 3. German: topographic name from Middle High German helle ‘hell’ (modem German Holle), used (often in field names) in a topographic sense to denote a hollow or a wild, precipitous place.

  as a name·Dictionary of American Family Names

• In Norwegian Nynorsk, flat stone

  as a word·kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

• In Swedish, Helle är en dansk (och senare norsk) form av → Helga. Det var mycket populärt i Danmark på 1960-talet. Kända namnbärare är den danska poeten Helle Helle (f. 1965) och Danmarks tidigare statsminister Helle Thorning-Schmidt (f. 1966).

  as a name·Förnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon

• In English, mythical Greek heroine drowned in

  as a name·Pronouncing Dictionary of Proper 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●

NO SSB — Navn (1880–present) — 80 years between 1946–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

• Helle Virknerb. 1925DKDanish actress (1925-2009)
• Helle Merib. 1949EEEstonian actor, First Lady of Estonia (1992–2001)
• Helle Kuningasb. 1949EEEstonian actress (1949-2014)
• Helle Helleb. 1965DKDanish short story writer and novelist
• Helle Charlotte Dollerisb. 1965DKDanish actress
• Helle Thorning-Schmidtb. 1966DKDanish retired politician, former Prime Minister of Denmark
• Helle Kleinb. 1966SEjournalist
• Helle Jensenb. 1969DKDanish association football player
• Nikki Daneb. 1974DKnot in their usual nameDanish pornographic actress
• Helle Frederiksenb. 1981DKDanish triathlete

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●

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 288 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Helle?

We estimate roughly 38 thousand people bear Helle (counting its spellings and scripts) across 9 countries in our records.

In which country does Helle have the most bearers?

Helle is most frequently recorded in Canada, where it is most often spelled hill.

How common is Helle compared with other names?

In Denmark, Helle is the 30th most common given name of 31,396 given names recorded there.

Is Helle a male or female name?

Helle 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 Helle mean?

Recorded meaning: from a personal name Helle, a pet-form of Ellis or a name in Hil(d)-, or perhaps Helen; first attested Johannes, Fulco filius Hel’ 1279 RH (Hu)