Nels — #5224 US boys' name

What the Data Says About Nels

The Social Security Administration has registered 3,819 babies named Nels between 1880 and 2024, spanning 145 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a boy's name, Nels currently holds the #5224 rank among boys for 2024. The name reached its historical peak in 1918, when 65 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Nels performed strongest in the 1950s, accumulating 454 births during that ten-year window. Across the 15 decades of recorded activity, Nels shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in Minnesota, which accounts for 228 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by California and Wisconsin. In total, SSA state-level files list Nels in 10 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Nels in our reference dataset. These figures derive from SSA's annual national and state-level name files, which include any name appearing at least five times in a given year or state-year; names below that threshold are suppressed for privacy and therefore excluded from the totals shown here. The 3,819 total represents a lower bound — actual usage may be higher in years or states where the count fell below the disclosure floor. This page is provided for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute personal, legal, or naming advice.