Eileen
- Pronunciation
- [Ei-leen]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Light Variant Of Evelyn.
- Origin
- Irish
About the Name Eileen
Eileen descends from the Irish form of Helen (see separate entries on Aileen and Helen for the Greek Helénē etymology meaning "sun ray" or "torch"). The Eileen spelling is the standard Anglicized Irish form.
The various spellings (Eileen, Aileen, Ailene) are tracked separately by SSA and represent the same underlying Greek-Irish name family. Notable bearers include American actress Eileen Brennan (1932–2013, the iconic American Oscar-nominated actress); American basketball player Eileen Jones; American writer Eileen Chang (Zhang Ailing, 1920–1995, the iconic Chinese-American writer); and the iconic American song Come On Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners (1982, the iconic British pop hit).
Eileen held a US top-50 girls' rank from 1928 through 1965 — about four decades of consistent American popularity, peaking around 1936 at #38 in the United States. The name has receded slightly since but remains in steady use, currently sitting in the US top 300 girls' rank. The name's appeal is its layered Greek-Irish-Anglicized pedigree combined with two firm syllables — the in-built Helen-classical Greek pedigree, the strong Irish-Catholic cultural register, and tonal warmth distinctive to Irish-derived naming. The name reads as both classical-Irish and contemporary American. Common nicknames Eily (the dominant warm short form, casual and warm), Lina, Lee (back-end shortening), and the rare Een each carry distinct registers; the alternate spellings Eileen (the more popular American form), Aileen (Irish alternate), Ailene, and Eilean have their own SSA tracking. International forms include the broader Helen/Eilín family.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Eileen
US Popularity History (1920–2025)
Annual US births named Eileen by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1947 with 4,251 girls named Eileen (girl rank #91 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #654 for girls (437 US births). That's 563 places below its 1947 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
Paste the snippet below on any HTML page. Includes a credit link back to 9BabyNames — please keep it intact.
Where in the US Is Eileen Most Popular?
Average girl-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Eileen the strongest states are California, New York, Connecticut.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | #397 | 843 |
| 2 | New York | #442 | 365 |
| 3 | Connecticut | #443 | 20 |
| 4 | Oregon | #557 | 25 |
| 5 | Nevada | #560 | 15 |
| 6 | Massachusetts | #573 | 76 |
| 7 | Texas | #581 | 512 |
| 8 | New Jersey | #595 | 130 |
| 9 | Maryland | #606 | 76 |
| 10 | Illinois | #638 | 151 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Florida | #855 | 111 |
| 2 | Minnesota | #840 | 17 |
| 3 | Pennsylvania | #827 | 82 |
| 4 | Colorado | #811 | 51 |
| 5 | Ohio | #791 | 83 |
| 6 | North Carolina | #780 | 96 |
| 7 | Alabama | #768 | 17 |
| 8 | Michigan | #751 | 74 |
| 9 | Missouri | #750 | 29 |
| 10 | Tennessee | #750 | 56 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Eileen in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aileen | Light. Variant Of Evelyn. | Female | Irish |
| Aleen | Fair: Good-Looking. Feminine Of Allen Or Variant Of Helen. | Female | Celtic |
| Alene | Fair: Good-Looking. Feminine Of Allen Or Variant Of Helen. | Female | Celtic |
| Aline | Fair: Good-Looking. Feminine Of Allen Or Variant Of Helen. | Female | Celtic |
| Eila | Variant Of Evelyn. | Female | Irish |
| Eileene | Variant Of Evelyn. | Female | Irish |
| Eilena | Variant Of Evelyn. | Female | Irish |
| Eilene | Variant Of Evelyn. | Female | Irish |
| Eily | Light | Female | Irish |
| Ileana | From Troy | Female | Greek |
| Ileanna | Variant Of Elena. | Female | Spanish |
| Ilene | Variant Of Eileen. | Female | English |
| Iliana | Variant Of Elena. | Female | Spanish |
| Leana | Derived From An Irish Gaelic Of Helen: (Light:Beautiful Woman): Variant Of Liana: (Youthful:Bond). | Female | English |
| Lena | Name Suffix. | Female | English |
| Lianna | Daughter Of The Sun. Diminutive Of Eliana. | Female | English |
| Lina | Light | Female | Romanian |
Looking for names like Eileen?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Eileen to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Eileen against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).