Elsa: Meaning of Baby Name Elsa

About the Name Elsa

Elsa is a Scandinavian and German short form of Elisabeth — and by extension of the Hebrew Elisheba, meaning "my God is an oath" or "my God is abundance." The meaning field here gives "truth," which appears to reflect a secondary folk interpretation or a localized Scandinavian gloss rather than the name's primary documented etymology; the Hebrew root of Elisheba remains the most linguistically grounded source for the broader Elisabeth family and should be regarded as authoritative. As a standalone name, Elsa has been in independent use across German-speaking and Scandinavian countries for centuries, carrying an elegant Nordic simplicity — two clean syllables, a bright opening vowel, a crisp final consonant — that has always made it feel both ancient and effortlessly modern. Its brevity gives it the quality of a name that needs no elaboration: compact, clear, and complete.

Elsa appears in the US Social Security top-1000 from 2000 and reached a striking peak rank of #286 in 2014. It has maintained continuous top-1000 presence in the years since: #952 in 2021, #994 in 2022, and #938 in 2024, reflecting sustained affection for the name across more than a decade. Over its tracked run, approximately 9,911 babies received the name in top-1000 years, with a trajectory that has remained remarkably stable across the 2010s and 2020s. Recorded variants include Elsie and Lisa.

Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.

Quick Facts About Elsa

957

Spanish baby names in our dictionary

559

Spanish female names

125

4-letter E-names in our dictionary

486

E-female names total

2000–2024

years of US SSA records (24 total)

9,911

total US births named Elsa (all years)

US Popularity History (2000–2024)

📉 Falling fast: Elsa dropped 147 places in the US girls ranking over the last 5 years (#791 in 2019 → #938 in 2024).

Annual US births named Elsa by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2014 with 1,140 girls named Elsa (girl rank #286 that year).

Where it stands today: in 2024, ranked #938 for girls (280 US births). That's 652 places below its 2014 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.

Where in the US Is Elsa 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 Elsa the strongest states are Oregon, Kentucky, Minnesota.

Strongest girls-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	Oregon	#544	26
2	Kentucky	#597	21
3	Minnesota	#630	75
4	California	#638	529
5	Wisconsin	#665	59
6	Colorado	#672	40
7	New York	#695	179
8	Massachusetts	#715	37
9	Virginia	#739	74
10	Arizona	#747	72

Weakest girls-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	Florida	#914	102
2	North Carolina	#904	48
3	Indiana	#896	20
4	Texas	#884	291
5	Ohio	#868	60
6	Georgia	#858	55
7	Michigan	#838	37
8	Illinois	#837	87
9	Alabama	#797	16
10	New Jersey	#783	39

Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Elsa in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.

Variant Forms

Name	Meaning	Gender	Origin
Elsie	Noble	Female	German
Lisa	Devoted To God	Female	German

Looking for names like Elsa?

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.

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Compare Elsa to Other Popular Names

Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Elsa against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).

Elsa vs Olivia 210,124 births since 2014

Elsa vs Emma 202,477 births since 2014

Elsa vs Sophia 169,709 births since 2014

Elsa vs Isabella 158,431 births since 2014

Elsa vs Ava 157,356 births since 2014

Elsa vs Charlotte 151,872 births since 2014

Elsa vs Mia 149,779 births since 2014

Elsa vs Amelia 142,728 births since 2014

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