Ilona

Where Ilona comes from

From Hungarian Ilona. A rare variant of Helen or Helena.
— Wiktionary's entry for Ilona
  • Ancient Greek
  • 3 syllables
  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1907
    Ilona Elek born
    Hungarian fencer
  2. 1909
    First appearance
    #2,208 among girls, 5 babies — the first year at least five got the name.
  3. 1946
    Peak, #818
    102 babies named Ilona — more than any year before or since.
  4. 1951
    Ilona Staller born
    Hungarian-born Italian pornographic actress, singer and politician
  5. 1955
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #1,556.
In the dictionary
  • A female given name from Ancient Greek.
Namesakes
  • Ilona Staller · Hungarian-born Italian pornographic actress, singer and politician, born 1951
  • Ilona Elek · Hungarian fencer, 1907–1988
  • Ilona Slupianek · East German shot putter, born 1956
  • Ilona Gusenbauer · Austrian high jumper, born 1947
  • Ilona Zrínyi · Princess Consort of Transylvania and Croatian noblewoman, 1643–1703

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.