Hélder is a given name in Portuguese. The unrelated German-Jewish surname "Helder" is also given the accent in Portuguese, such as the Portuguese poet Herberto Hélder (1930-).
The most notable person to carry the given name Hélder was the Brazilian "archbishop of the poor" Dom Hélder Câmara (1909-1999). Born into a very large family, nine of whose children had already died young, his father chose the new child's name from his wife's atlas of the world. His father liked the sound of the place name Helder in Holland. Câmara, when studying later with a Dutch teacher was delighted to find that the adjective wikt:helder in Dutch meant bright, cloudless.
However the name does not originate with archbishop Câmara, the name was also given to the dramatist Hélder Prista Monteiro (1922-1994), literary scholar Hélder Macedo, son of a colonial administrator in Mozambique (born 1935) and the Portuguese dramatist Hélder Costa (born 1939). As bishop Câmara's worldwide reputation spread in the 1970s the name was popularised in other Portuguese-speaking countries.
The name is sometimes confused with Heitor. People named Hélder include:
- Hélder Barbosa (1987-), Portuguese footballer
- Hélder Cabral (1984-), Portuguese footballer
- Hélder Cristóvão (1971-), Angola-born Portuguese footballer, often just called Hélder
- Hélder Costa (1939-), Portuguese dramatist, formerly exiled in Paris
- Hélder Costa (footballer) (1994-), Angola-born Portuguese footballer
- Hélder Muianga (1976-), Mozambican football player
- Hélder Esteves (1977-), Portuguese football striker
- Helder Francisco Malauene ( ), Mozambican politician
- Hélder Macedo (1935), Portuguese literary scholar and writer
- Hélder Prista Monteiro (1922-1994), Portuguese absurdist playwright
- Hélder Graça Neto (1982-), Angolan footballer
- Hélder Postiga (1982-), Portuguese footballer
- Hélder Lima Queiroz (21st century), Brazilian zoologist
- Hélder Queiroz Pinto Jr., Brazilian energy economist
- Hélder Rosário (1980-), Portuguese footballer
- Hélder Maurílio Da Silva Ferreira (born 1988), Brazilian footballer