Bella
Beautiful or pretty, a feminine name of Italian origin.
Name Census estimates that about 76,210 living Americans carry the first name Bella. It sits at #109 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Bella today is around 13 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Bella births was 2010 (5,143 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Bella. 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.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Bella with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Bella is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 13 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
76K
~ 1 in 4,497 Americans
Peak year
2010
5,143 babies that year
Average age
13
years old
2019 SSA rank
#109
Tracked since 1880
Census
Bella in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 66,736 people with the first name Bella, which placed it at #755 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
#755
National first-name rank
People counted
67K
66,736 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
22.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
49.4% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Bella
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Bella is White at 49.4%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (30.7%) and Black (7.9%). 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 Bella 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 Bella at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White49.4% · 32,961
- Hispanic or Latino30.7% · 20,518
- Black or African American7.9% · 5,263
- Asian and Pacific Islander6.1% · 4,059
- Two or more races5.2% · 3,488
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.7% · 447
Gender
Gender distribution for Bella
Out of the 81,582 babies given the name Bella since 1880, 99.9% were registered as female. The name sits firmly on the female side of the spectrum, with only a handful of male registrations across the entire dataset.
Bella as a male name
- Ranked #12,383 in 2019
- 5 male births in 2019
- Peak: 2011 (9 births)
Bella as a female name
- Ranked #109 in 2024
- 2,469 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2010 (5,135 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Bella appears almost entirely female. Of the 66,739 people counted with this name, 99.7% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Bella: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Bella from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 43,226 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Bella remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Bella 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 Bella during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Bellas live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, Texas, New York recorded the most babies named Bella, while Vermont, Wyoming, South Dakota recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,529 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Bella
The name Bella is a feminine given name of Latin origin. It derives from the Italian word "bella," which means "beautiful" or "pretty." The name Bella can also be traced back to the Latin word "bellus," meaning "beautiful" or "handsome."
The name Bella has been used since ancient Roman times, and it was particularly popular among Italian families. In the Middle Ages, the name gained popularity across Europe, especially in Italy, France, and Spain. During the Renaissance period, the name was widely used by Italian artists and writers to describe beautiful women in their works.
One of the earliest recorded uses of the name Bella can be found in Dante Alighieri's famous literary work, "The Divine Comedy," written in the early 14th century. In the poem, Dante refers to his beloved Beatrice as "la bella donna" (the beautiful lady).
Throughout history, several notable figures have borne the name Bella. One of the most famous was Bella Abzug (1920-1998), an American politician and feminist leader known for her advocacy for women's rights and social justice causes. Another notable Bella was Bella Davidovich (1928-2011), a renowned Russian-American pianist and music educator.
In the literary world, Bella Paton (1904-1976) was a Scottish novelist and playwright who wrote the popular novel "The Cleft Rock." Bella Akhmadulina (1937-2010) was a celebrated Russian poet who was part of the influential "Lianozovo school" of poets in the Soviet era.
In the world of art, Bella Rosenfeld (1900-1984) was a prominent American painter and sculptor known for her abstract expressionist works. Her contemporaries included artists like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning.
These are just a few examples of the many notable individuals throughout history who have borne the name Bella, a name that has endured for centuries and continues to hold a special charm and beauty.
People
Bella + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Bella 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
Bella: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Bella?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 76,210 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Bella 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 4,497 US residents.
Is Bella a common name?
We classify Bella as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 81,582 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Bella most popular?
The single biggest year for Bella was 2010, when 5,143 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Bella is about 13 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Bella in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 66,736 people with the name Bella, or 22.10 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #755 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 Bella 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 Bella?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Bella appears almost entirely female. Of the 66,739 people counted with this name, 99.7% 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 Bella?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Bella is White at 49.4%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (30.7%) and Black (7.9%). 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 Bella most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Bella in the 2020 Census, accounting for 49.4% (32,961 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 Bella in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Bella a female name?
Yes, 99.9% of people registered as Bella 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 Bella still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Bella 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 Bella 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 common is the name Bella?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.