Nelson — #778 US boys' name

What the Data Says About Nelson

The Social Security Administration has registered 79,398 babies named Nelson between 1880 and 2024, spanning 145 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a boy's name, Nelson currently holds the #778 rank among boys for 2024. The name reached its historical peak in 1959, when 1,083 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Nelson performed strongest in the 1950s, accumulating 9,199 births during that ten-year window. Across the 15 decades of recorded activity, Nelson shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in New York, which accounts for 12,396 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by California and Pennsylvania. In total, SSA state-level files list Nelson in 47 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Nelson 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 79,398 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.