Ylva

Spellings & scripts●

Locally spelled Ilva in BR Brazil, LV Latvia, VE Venezuela and 13 more, Ильва in RU Russia, ZW Zimbabwe and Ілва in UA Ukraine.

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 in 1 language 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 recorded senses●

Ylva is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

• In Swedish, Ylva är ett nordiskt namn, ursprungligen ett binamn med betydelsen ’varghona’, avlett av ordet ulv. Birger jarls (död 1266) mor hette Ingrid Ylva, där Ylva var ett binamn (se Terminologi i Inledning). Som förnamn har namnet inte använts i Sverige förrän under sent 1800-tal. I den rikssvenska almanackan 11 april och i den finlandssvenska 13 september.

  as a name·Förnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon

• In German, in den i96oer-Jahren entlehnter weibl.

  as a name·DUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen

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) — 58 years between 1956–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

• Ylva Annerstedtb. 1939SESwedish politician (1939-2013)
• Ylva Eggehornb. 1950SESwedish writer
• Ylva Lööfb. 1958SESwedish actress
• Ylva Ekbladb. 1961FIFinnish actress
• Ylva Johanssonb. 1964SESwedish politician
• Ylva Nowénb. 1970SESwedish female former alpine skier
• Ylva Lindbergb. 1976SESwedish ice hockey player
• Ylva Karlssonb. 1978SESwedish writer (born 1978)
• Ylva Bjørkaas Thedinb. 2002NONorwegian actress
• Ylva Cecilia WaernSEactress

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 · 266 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Ylva?

We estimate roughly 18 thousand people bear Ylva (counting its spellings and scripts) across 12 countries in our records.

In which country does Ylva have the most bearers?

We estimate about 11 thousand people bear Ylva in Sweden, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled ylva.

Where is Ylva most common?

Ylva is densest in Sweden, where the national register counts about 1 in 932 people carrying it.

Is Ylva a male or female name?

Ylva 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 Ylva mean?

Recorded meaning: a female given name from Old Swedish, meaning “she-wolf”, masculine equivalent Ulv