Nella
A feminine name derived from Petronella, of Latin origins, meaning "rock".
Name Census estimates that about 1,872 living Americans carry the first name Nella. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Nella today is around 35 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Nella births was 1927 (81 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Nella. 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 Nella with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
1.9K
~ 1 in 183,095 Americans
Peak year
1927
81 babies that year
Average age
35
years old
2024 SSA rank
#2,785
Tracked since 1880
Census
Nella in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 2,381 people with the first name Nella, which placed it at #6,671 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
#6,671
National first-name rank
People counted
2.4K
2,381 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.8
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
73.8% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Nella
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Nella is White at 73.8%. The next largest groups are Black (10.2%) and Hispanic (8.1%). 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 Nella 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 Nella at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White73.8% · 1,758
- Black or African American10.2% · 244
- Hispanic or Latino8.1% · 192
- Two or more races4.3% · 102
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.2% · 76
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.4% · 9
Popularity
Nella: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Nella from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 656 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 1920s peak, Nella remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Nella 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 Nella during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Nellas live
The SSA's state-level files cover 23 states and territories. Kentucky, Texas, Alabama recorded the most babies named Nella, while Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Indiana recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 47 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Nella
Nella is a feminine given name with roots in several European languages. It is believed to have originated as a diminutive or pet form of the Italian name Aniela, which derives from the Greek name Anelia, itself a variation of the biblical name Ananias, meaning "favored by God" or "graced by the Lord".
The name Nella can also be traced back to the Slavic name Nela, a diminutive of the name Nadezhda, meaning "hope". This Slavic variant was popular in countries like Russia, Poland, and the Czech Republic, where it was sometimes spelled as Niela or Nela.
Another possible origin of the name Nella is the German diminutive form of the name Petronella, which itself is derived from the Latin name Petronius, meaning "related to stone". This German variant was commonly used in regions like Bavaria and Austria.
In ancient texts, the name Nella is not widely documented, but the name Anelia is mentioned in some Greek and Roman records, indicating its early use in those cultures.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Nella is Nella Barozzi (1590-1644), an Italian singer and composer who was renowned for her madrigals and sacred works. Another notable figure is Nella Larsen (1891-1964), an American novelist and writer of the Harlem Renaissance, best known for her novels "Quicksand" and "Passing".
Other historical figures with the name Nella include Nella Vučković (1909-1987), a Croatian writer and translator, and Nella Braddy Henney (1899-1984), an American lawyer and civil rights activist who fought for women's rights and racial equality.
In the realm of literature, the name Nella appears in several works, such as the character Nella in the novel "The Mill on the Floss" by George Eliot, and the protagonist Nella in the children's book series "Nella the Princess Knight" by Christine Ricci.
People
Nella + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Nella as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with N
Other first names starting with N with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Nella: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Nella?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 1,872 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Nella 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 183,095 US residents.
Is Nella a common name?
We classify Nella as "Rare". It ranks above 93.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 4,314 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Nella most popular?
The single biggest year for Nella was 1927, when 81 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Nella is about 35 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Nella in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 2,381 people with the name Nella, or 0.79 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #6,671 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 Nella 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 Nella?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Nella appears almost entirely female. Of the 2,390 people counted with this name, 99.4% 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 Nella?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Nella is White at 73.8%. The next largest groups are Black (10.2%) and Hispanic (8.1%). 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 Nella most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Nella in the 2020 Census, accounting for 73.8% (1,758 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 Nella in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Nella a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Nella 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 Nella still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Nella 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 Nella 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 are called Nella?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.