Angela
Masculine · “messenger”
Angela is given to girls far more often — 673,257 girls against 2,135 boys since 1880. See Angela as a girl 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 first appears in US birth records in 1918 — 107 years ago. The typical Angela alive today was born around 1974, making them about 51 years old. About 1,800 people named Angela are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Angela most popular?
Angela peaked in 1971, reaching #848 nationally. See the whole 1971 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
- 1918
- Most boys named
- 197192 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #848reached in 1971
- Change vs 2006
- −11.1%8 in 2008, from 9
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
Angelas among us
people named Angela are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Angela sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
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
Masculine
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 1,800 people named Angela are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Angela in 2025?
- Angela is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Angela with classmates?
- Angela will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More A names
The most-given names starting with A, all years combined.
Anthony#46 · Andrew#73 · Alexander#30 · Aaron#80 · Adam#101 · Arthur#87 · Albert#614 · Austin#113
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Angela? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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