Meaning and history
From an English surname meaning “son of Neil,” Nélson was originally given in honor of the British admiral Horatio Nelson (1758–1805), whose best-known victory was the Battle of Trafalgar, where he destroyed a combined French and Spanish fleet but was killed. Another notable bearer was the South African statesman Nelson Mandela (1918–2013), who was born Rolihlahla and received the English name Nelson from a teacher as a child.
20062006: 605 births, rank #448
2007: 584 births, rank #467
2008: 551 births, rank #497
2009: 520 births, rank #519
2010: 447 births, rank #568
20112011: 457 births, rank #556
2012: 466 births, rank #558
2013: 442 births, rank #581
2014: 409 births, rank #645
2015: 426 births, rank #626
20162016: 431 births, rank #621
2017: 411 births, rank #631
2018: 374 births, rank #671
2019: 407 births, rank #654
2020: 388 births, rank #670
20212021: 358 births, rank #722
2022: 315 births, rank #797
2023: 311 births, rank #797
2024: 323 births, rank #777
20252025: 300 births, rank #824
Nelson moved from #778 to #825 for boys between 2024 and 2025. Its highest annual birth count came in 1959, with 1,084 births.