Belita
A Spanish feminine name meaning "little beauty."
Name Census estimates that about 260 living Americans carry the first name Belita. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Belita today is around 69 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Belita births was 1952 (24 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Belita. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
Key insights
- • The typical person named Belita is about 69 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Belitas were born before 1967.
People living today
260
~ 1 in 1,318,286 Americans
Peak year
1952
24 babies that year
Average age
69
years old
1980 SSA rank
#7,481
Tracked since 1943
Census
Belita in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 366 people with the first name Belita, which placed it at #25,756 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#25,756
National first-name rank
People counted
366
366 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
43.7% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Belita
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Belita is Black at 43.7%. The next largest groups are White (36.6%) and Hispanic (10.1%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Belita described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Belita at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American43.7% · 160
- White36.6% · 134
- Hispanic or Latino10.1% · 37
- Asian and Pacific Islander4.4% · 16
- Two or more races3.8% · 14
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.4% · 5
Popularity
Belita: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Belita from the 1940s through to the 1980s, spanning 5 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1950s, with 151 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1950s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Belita by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Belita during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Origin
Meaning and history of Belita
The given name Belita has its roots in the Spanish language. It is a diminutive form of the name Bela, which is derived from the Spanish word "bella," meaning beautiful. The name can be traced back to the medieval period in Spain, where it was commonly used as a feminine name.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Belita can be found in the works of Spanish poet and playwright Lope de Vega (1562-1635), who used the name for one of the characters in his plays. This suggests that the name was already in use during the late 16th and early 17th centuries in Spain.
In the 19th century, the name gained popularity beyond Spain, particularly in Latin American countries. One notable bearer of the name was Belita Jepner-Turner (1923-2005), an American figure skater of Spanish descent. She was a three-time World Figure Skating Champion and won an Olympic gold medal in 1948.
Another famous Belita was Belita Moreno (1908-1981), a Mexican actress and dancer who appeared in several Hollywood films during the 1930s and 1940s. She was known for her roles in movies such as "Monsieur Beaucaire" (1946) and "Captain from Castile" (1947).
In literature, the name Belita was used by the Spanish writer Benito Pérez Galdós (1843-1920) for a character in his novel "Fortunata y Jacinta" (1887), which is considered one of the masterpieces of 19th-century Spanish literature.
The name Belita was also borne by Belita Woods (1932-2022), an American actress and dancer who appeared in several musicals and television shows in the 1950s and 1960s, including "Carousel" (1956) and "The Ed Sullivan Show."
In the world of music, Belita Lipič (born 1936) is a Slovenian singer and actress who gained popularity in the former Yugoslavia during the 1960s and 1970s, known for her interpretations of traditional Balkan folk songs.
People
Belita + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Belita as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with B
Other first names starting with B with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Belita: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Belita?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 260 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Belita going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 1,318,286 US residents.
Is Belita a common name?
We classify Belita as "Very Rare". It ranks above 77.6% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 384 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Belita most popular?
The single biggest year for Belita was 1952, when 24 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Belita is about 69 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Belita in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 366 people with the name Belita, or 0.12 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #25,756 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Belita in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Belita?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Belita appears almost entirely female. Of the 359 people counted with this name, 100.0% were female and only a very small share were male. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Belita?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Belita is Black at 43.7%. The next largest groups are White (36.6%) and Hispanic (10.1%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Belita most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Belita in the 2020 Census, accounting for 43.7% (160 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Belita in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Belita a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Belita in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Belita still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Belita in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Belita can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people have Belita as a first name?
If you just want to know how many people have the name Belita, HowManyOfMe.org gives you the headline number in one glance.