Help from our Hispanic DU-ers: When did the name Olga become so popular in the Hispanic community?

[wnylib]

14. I'm not Hispanic but got curious about this

because I have known 2 Olgas. One was Russian-American, a neighbor of my grsndfsther when I was a child. Several.decades later I met a Mexican-American woman named Olga.

Turns out it was originally a German and Scandinavian name, Helga. Several Scandinavians settled in Russia, which is how Russia got its name, from rus for red (red-haired).

Olga is the Slavic form of Helga. There was a Saint Olga in Kiev in the 10th century. The masculine form of the name is Oleg.

There are millions of people of German descent in Mexico. Most came in the 19th century, but several arrived during and after the 2 world wars.

My guess is that German immigrants carried the name Helga to Mexico where it became Olga for a couple reasons. One is that Olga is the form most associated with the saint from Kiev. Catholics name children after saints and Mexico is predominantly Cstholic.

The other reason for Helga becoming Olga in Mexico is that Spanish does not pronounce "h" at the start of a word. Helga would be pronounced as "Elga" in Spanish--much closer to Olga, the Slavic form of the saint's name.