Holiday Calendar

National Ellen Day

Next celebratedTuesday, January 5, 2027

Ellen was a boy's name too, listed in 73 of the 146 annual American files and last recorded in 1993. The American day for the name is January 5, though Sweden gives its Ellens August 18 instead.

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Last updated September 7, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATEJanuary 5
OBSERVED INUnited States
CATEGORYNames
ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY
Not documented
FIRST OBSERVED
Not documented
HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

Two regional newsrooms put it on the calendar.

Somerset Live and Plymouth Live marked National Ellen Day on 5 January 2026, describing it as a day for people named Ellen. No founder, proclamation or establishment record has been identified, and nothing dates the day's first appearance.

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INTRO

Ask when Ellen peaked and get three different answers

National Ellen Day lands on a name with an unusually complete paper trail. The Social Security Administration has published a list of American girls' names every year since 1880, and Ellen is on all of them. Ask which of those years was Ellen's best and the same archive gives three different answers.

By share of the girls listed in the file, the answer is 1884. By rank it is 1946. By raw count it is 1951.

The earliest of the three is an artifact of who got counted, not of what anyone was named. Look at what the agency recorded for 1908. The file lists 2.166 girls for every boy, a ratio no real birth cohort produces.

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ORIGINS

Ellen Day history

INTRODUCTION

The reference works do not agree on what Ellen means. Behind the Name gives a Greek word for torch as the probable source, while allowing a possible link to the separate word for moon. Oxford's A Dictionary of First Names calls the origin uncertain and reaches no further than a possible link to ray or sunbeam.

A third reading comes from the onomastician Cleveland Evans, who glosses the root as the Greek word for St. Elmo's Fire, the light that appears around a ship's mast in a thunderstorm. Three sources, three answers, and no two of them agree.

CHAPTER 01

The empress the name was borrowed for

What is settled is who carried it. Helena, mother of the emperor Constantine, made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and had churches raised at the reputed sites of the Nativity and the Ascension.

The rest of the story is where Britannica gets careful. The cross was claimed found in Jerusalem during the building of Constantine's church on Golgotha, and Helena was credited with the discovery only later in the century. The encyclopedia adds that the legend grew "enhanced by romances and confusions with other Helens."

CHAPTER 02

Ellen first, Helen later

In England the name was usually written Ellen through the Middle Ages, and that spelling held for centuries. Helen, the classical form, was not regularly used until after the Renaissance.

CHAPTER 03

The American century and its sharpest year

The spelling carried into the American record and sat inside the top 100 for girls for decades. Measured as a multiple, its sharpest single year in the whole record is 1997. The count fell to 812 girls, against 1,156 the year before.

That April the ABC sitcom Ellen aired the episode in which its lead character came out, watched by an estimated 42 million viewers. Evans reads the slide that followed as one that may be partly due to the star becoming a one-name celebrity. What the record holds is a sequence, not a cause.

CHAPTER 04

A day with no author

National Ellen Day itself has no such paper trail. No founder, proclamation, or establishment record for it could be located, and the only newsrooms that have marked it did so on the day itself without saying where it came from.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Ellen Day

SCALE

Evans puts the 1850 US census at 121,770 Ellens, 19,849 Helens.

Ellen's American record starts decades before the Social Security files do, and it starts big. The onomastician Cleveland Evans puts the 1850 United States census at 121,770 Ellens against 19,849 Helens.

CONTINUITY

It tracks a name that never left the record

Of the 72,339 girls' names ever listed in America's national files, only 436 appear in every single year. Ellen is one of those 436.

OBSERVANCE

Newsrooms mark it on the day itself

Somerset Live and Plymouth Live, two British regional newsrooms, both posted on January 5, 2026, calling it a day for the Ellens in their readers' lives. Neither is a holiday-listing site, which makes the two posts the clearest evidence that anyone outside those listings keeps the date.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Ellen Day by the Numbers

275,284
US girls named Ellen at birth, 1880-2025
77
Ellen's years in the US top 100
230
US girls named Ellen in 2025
1,062
Ellen's rank among US girls, 2025

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about National Ellen Day

The Canterbury Tales never spells it Ellen

In Skeat's Middle English text the name appears three times and is spelled Eleyne every time, while a modern-spelling edition prints Helen instead. One of the three is the Pardoner's oath on the cross that seint Eleyne fond.

Ellie passed Ellen in 1999 and never fell back

The crossing year ran 708 American girls to 675. Behind the Name files Ellie as a diminutive of Eleanor, Ellen, and Elizabeth alike, so it belongs to no single parent.

Sweden already keeps an Ellen day, in August

The Swedish name-day calendar gives August 18 to Ellen and Lena, the same date as the Western feast of Saint Helena. January 5 in that calendar belongs to Hanna and Hannele.

Ellen has been a boy's name too

It is listed for boys in 73 of the 146 annual files, last in 1993, peaking at 22 boys in 1941. The list only shows names with five or more occurrences, so the gaps mean fewer than five, not none.

Ellen has fallen out of the published top 1000

The popularity lists most people see stop at 1,000 names, and Ellen has sat outside that cut every year since 2022. It is still listed in the full national file, which goes thousands of names deeper.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Ellen Day

EDITOR'S PICK

Look up the year your Ellen was born

The Social Security Administration's full national files run back to 1880 and list every year separately. A birth year turns an abstract name into a number you can see.

READ

Read the Pardoner's Tale for Chaucer's spelling

Skeat's Middle English edition is free at Project Gutenberg. Search it for Eleyne rather than Ellen, or you will find nothing.

SEND

Send a card rather than a message

A handwritten note lands better than a line in a group chat. Say something specific about where the name comes from instead of a generic greeting.

COMPARE

Compare the spellings side by side

Behind the Name's entries for Ellen and Elen set out what each one is. Elen is the Welsh and modern Armenian form, and it carries a fourth-century Welsh saint of its own.

ASK

Ask an Ellen how her family chose the spelling

Elen, Ellyn, and Ellie all turn up in the same American records. The variant a family settled on is usually a story worth hearing.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Ellen Day?

1 / 8

How does Chaucer spell the name in the Canterbury Tales?

Answer

No. It is an unofficial observance with no legal standing that could be located, so shops, schools, and offices open as normal on January 5.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

14sources
5primary records
9independently dated
Primary records
Social Security Administration2026
Popular Baby Names: Beyond the Top 1000 Names
The national baby-name files, the five-occurrence privacy rule, and the published top-1000 percentages.
View source
Project Gutenberg2021-04-30
Chaucer's Works, Volume 4: The Canterbury Tales, edited by Walter W. Skeat
The Middle English text, where the name is spelled Eleyne every time it appears.
View source
Project Gutenberg2022-12-06
The Canterbury Tales, and Other Poems, edited by David Laing Purves
A modern-spelling edition of the same poems.
View source
Somerset Live2026-01-05
It is National Ellen Day (Facebook post, 5 January 2026)
A regional newsroom marking the day, for the Ellens in readers' lives.
View source
Plymouth Live2026-01-05
Today is National Ellen Day (Facebook post, 5 January 2026)
A second newsroom posting the same message hours later on the same date.
View source
Additional coverage
Behind the Name
Meaning, origin and history of the name Ellen (1)
Ellen as the medieval English form of Helen, usual until the 1800s.
View source
Behind the Name
Meaning, origin and history of the name Helen
The hedged Greek etymology, and when English writing switched from Ellen to Helen.
View source
Behind the Name
Meaning, origin and history of the name Ellie
Ellie treated as a diminutive of Eleanor, Ellen, and Elizabeth alike.
View source
Behind the Name
Meaning, origin and history of the name Elen
Elen as the Welsh and modern Armenian form, and a fourth-century Welsh saint.
View source
Oxford University Press2006
Helen, in A Dictionary of First Names (2 ed.), Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges
The reference entry calling the name's origin uncertain, possibly ray or sunbeam.
View source
Encyclopaedia Britannica2024-09
St. Helena
Her pilgrimage, the August 18 Western feast, and the True Cross credit.
View source
Nordic Names
Swedish Name Days
Sweden's name-day calendar, giving Ellen August 18 and Hanna January 5.
View source
American Name Society2020-01-13
About Names: A week to celebrate Ellen, a name with a long history
Cleveland Evans on Ellen's roots and the 1850 census counts of Ellens and Helens.
View source
HISTORY2025-05-27
Controversial coming out episode of Ellen airs, April 30, 1997
The air date, the estimated 42 million viewers, and the show's cancellation that season.
View source
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