In 2025, 41 US girls were named Elva, making it the 3,665th most common girls’ name of the year, down 4 places from #3,661 in 2024. That is 1 fewer than the 42 girls named Elva in 2024. Its best rank for girls was #161, reached in 1901. The most girls given the name in a single year was 789, in 1918. For comparison, it was #3,550 in 2015 and #554 in 1950.
Social Security card records list Elva in every one of the 146 years from 1880 to 2025; in 1880 there were 44 babies with the name. In all, 32,514 US babies have been given the name, 97% of them girls and 2.5% boys. Its busiest decade was the 1920s, with 6,531 babies named Elva.
Over the 10 years from 2016 to 2025, 443 US girls were named Elva; the busiest of those years was 2016, with 54. In 2025 that was about 1 in 39,202 of the girls in SSA’s list for the year.
Related spellings in the SSA files include Alva (20,158 babies since 1880). Rarer spellings such as Alfa, Elfa and Ilva are summarised on this page.
Meaning
Meaning not yet researched.
We publish a meaning only with a cited source and a confidence label, and never generate one. Meanings are being researched for the most common names first.
Wikidata records this spelling as a given name in Latvian. That is where the name is used, not necessarily where it comes from.