Abella
Feminine · “Latin”
The medical school at Salerno taught women. Trota of Salerno wrote on women's medicine in the twelfth century, and Abella, Rebecca Guarna and Mercuriade are named in the records as practitioners and authors there. Europe's first medical school had female faculty three hundred years before most universities admitted women at all.
How old is the name Abella?
Abella first appears in US birth records in 2000 — 25 years ago. The typical Abella is a kid of about 10 — this name's wave is very recent. About 1,100 people named Abella are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Abella most popular?
Abella peaked in 2018, reaching #2190 nationally. Today it ranks #8362, 6,172 places below that high. See the whole 2018 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Abella
The Schola Medica Salernitana operated in southern Italy from around the ninth century and is generally regarded as the first medical school in western Europe. It sat at a meeting point of Latin, Greek, Arabic and Jewish medical traditions, translated Arabic texts into Latin, and produced a body of practical writing that circulated for centuries. Among its practitioners were women, referred to collectively in later sources as the mulieres Salernitanae, the women of Salerno. Trota is the best documented: a treatise on women's medicine attributed to her circulated across Europe for four hundred years under the name Trotula. Abella is named in the records as a lecturer and the author of works on black bile and on seminal fluid, neither of which survives. How much of the tradition is documented fact and how much is later accretion has been argued over, but the women are in the record and the school was real.
Meaningscholars disagree
Latin, from a diminutive or a place name
Abella has several possible sources. It may be a Latin diminutive formed with -ella, the same suffix that gives Marcella and Isabella; it may derive from the Italian town of Abella in Campania, known in antiquity for its hazelnuts, which is where the botanical name for the hazel comes from; and it is used in Catalan and Occitan as a surname meaning a bee. It peaks in the American data in 2018.
Pronouncing Abella
uh-BEL-ah
Three syllables, stress on the second. ah-BEH-yah is the Catalan reading, where ll is a distinct sound. English speakers occasionally say AB-uh-lah with the stress at the front.
Nicknames for Abella
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 2000
- Most girls named
- 201885 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2190reached in 2018
- Change vs 2024
- −45.5%12 in 2025, from 22
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Abella in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Abella in Catalan — same name
- Abella in Italian — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Abellas among us
people named Abella are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 133,939 born in 2025 was named Abella
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Jackelin test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Abella's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Jackelin climbed just as high around 2000, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jackelin's path sketches the road Abella is walking now.
Abella sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Abella beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Abella in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It contains Bella and Ella, both established names.
- The historical figure is a genuinely notable one.
- The rhythm is even and easy to say.
- Its derivation is genuinely uncertain between several candidates.
- Abella, Abela and Avella all circulate.
- It is easily confused with Isabella and Arabella.
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What they receive
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Abella
Feminine · #8362 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Abellas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,100 people named Abella are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Abella in 2025?
- Abella ranks #8362 among US girl names in 2025, with 12 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Abella?
- About 1 in every 133,939 US girls born in 2025 was named Abella — 12 in all.
- Will my child share the name Abella with classmates?
- Abella will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Abella
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lona#8362 · Peggy#8362 · Leda#8362 · Margarette#8362 · Rella#8362 · Evalena#8362 · Vashti#8362 · Nona#8362
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Abella? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Abella and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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