Angela
Feminine · “messenger”
Angela is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 673,257 girls against 2,135 boys since 1880. See Angela as a boy name
Angel and evangelist are the same word. One has a prefix meaning good, the other does not, and the shared part means a messenger — someone carrying a message, with nothing supernatural about it. Greek used the word for a runner with a despatch long before it used it for anything with wings.
How old is the name Angela?
Angela was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Angela alive today was born around 1975, making them about 50 years old. About 613,000 people named Angela are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Angela most popular?
Angela peaked in 1974, reaching #5 nationally. Today it ranks #408, 403 places below that high. See the whole 1974 chart.
Where it comes from
From angelos to Angela
The story of Angela
The woman the name is best known for founded a religious order and then made sure it did not look like one. In sixteenth-century Italy, women who wanted a religious life had a convent or nothing; she assembled a company of women who took vows, taught girls in their own neighborhoods, and went on living in their own houses with their own families. There was no habit and no enclosure. The church regularised it into a conventional order within a few decades of her death, which is what usually happens, but the original arrangement was a genuinely new idea about what a religious woman's life could be — and it was designed around the girls being taught rather than around the women teaching.
Meaning
messenger
Greek, and the sense is straightforwardly occupational. The religious meaning is a translation choice: when the Hebrew scriptures were put into Greek, the word for a messenger was used for the beings who carry God's messages, and it narrowed from there.
How the name formed
- angelos
- Angela
- Angelina
Related forms: Angela · Ángela · Angela · Angèle
Pronouncing Angela
AN-juh-luh
Three syllables with the stress at the front. Italian and Spanish say it with a harder g and the same stress, which English speakers rarely attempt.
Nicknames for Angela
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
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 197223,561 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #5reached in 1974
- Change vs 2022
- −42.2%765 in 2025, from 1,323
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.
Angela in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Angela in Italian — same name
- Ángela in Spanish — same name
- Angela in German — same name
- Angèle in French — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Angelas among us
people named Angela are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 2,101 born in 2025 was named Angela
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 Sandra test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Angela's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Sandra climbed just as high around 1947, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Sandra's path sketches the road Angela is walking now.
Angela 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
Where Angela is headed
Angela should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Angela beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Angela in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is recognized across Europe with almost no change of spelling.
- The meaning is warm and easy to explain without any etymology.
- Angie is a short form that works in any setting and at any age.
- Its peak was very large and very concentrated, which dates the name clearly.
- Angela, Angelia and Anjela all appear and the spelling occasionally gets queried.
- The record holds a few boys as well, and the boy is much the smaller side.
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What they receive
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Angela
Feminine · #408 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Angelas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 613,000 people named Angela are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Angela in 2025?
- Angela ranks #408 among US girl names in 2025, with 765 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Angela?
- About 1 in every 2,101 US girls born in 2025 was named Angela — 765 in all.
- Will my child share the name Angela with classmates?
- Angela will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Angela
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Brynn#407 · Annalise#409 · Mckenna#410 · Lana#406 · Carolina#405 · Journey#411 · Raven#404 · Alayah#412
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Angela? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Angela and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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