Arabella
Feminine
Arabella has been written down in Scotland since the Middle Ages, when noble families used it alongside its sister forms Arabel and Amabel. It is four syllables that fall into an easy rise and drop — a-ra-BEL-la — and it has been handed to opera (Richard Strauss set it in the 1930s) and to novels without ever losing its footing as an ordinary given name.
How old is the name Arabella?
Arabella first appears in US birth records in 1881 — 144 years ago. The typical Arabella is a kid of about 8 — this name's wave is very recent. About 27,000 people named Arabella are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Arabella most popular?
Arabella peaked in 2017, reaching #156 nationally. Today it ranks #213, 57 places below that high. See the whole 2017 chart.
Where it comes from
From Amabilis to Arabella
The story of Arabella
The name surfaces in medieval Scotland, where records show Arabella beside the closely related Arabel and Amabel among aristocratic families — the same circles that used Annabel. From there it spread into England, and by the seventeenth century it was well established in noble English use; Lady Arbella Stuart, a cousin of James VI and I, carried a variant of it. British novelists kept it in circulation, Thomas Hardy giving it to Arabella Donn in Jude the Obscure, and Richard Strauss put it on the opera stage in the 1930s. It crossed to the United States long ago and has been recorded here continuously since the nineteenth century, with a fresh rise in recent decades.
Meaningscholars disagree
Either "lovable" or "yielding to prayer" — the two readings compete
One line derives Arabella from Latin amabilis, "lovable", through the medieval names Amabel and Annabel; the other from Latin orabilis, roughly "able to be entreated, yielding to prayer". Both are serious proposals and neither has won. Despite the look of the first four letters, there is no documented connection to the word Arab.
How the name formed
- Amabilis
- Amabel
- Arabel
- Arabella
Related forms: Arabelle · Arabella · Arabela · Arabela · Arabel · Annabella
Pronouncing Arabella
a-ruh-BEL-uh
Stress on the third syllable, which keeps it distinct from Annabella. The first vowel is the short a of cat, and it is rarely mispronounced once seen.
Nicknames for Arabella
High
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
- 1881
- Most girls named
- 20141,914 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #156reached in 2017
- Change vs 2022
- +8.3%1,423 in 2025, from 1,314
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.
Arabella in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Arabelle in French — spelling variant
- Arabella in Italian — same name
- Arabela in Polish — spelling variant
- Arabela in Czech — spelling variant
- Arabel in Scots — related form
- Annabella in English — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida. International figures from Office for National Statistics, National Records of Scotland. Sources
Arabellas among us
people named Arabella are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 1,129 born in 2025 was named Arabella
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 Marcella test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Arabella's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Marcella climbed just as high around 1922, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Marcella's path sketches the road Arabella is walking now.
Arabella 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 Arabella is headed
Arabella should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High 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.
Arabella beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Arabella in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Ready-made short forms at both ends of the name — Bella, Belle, Ara — so a child has options without a nickname having to be invented.
- Documented in Britain since the Middle Ages, an unusually long unbroken written record for a name still given today.
- Spelled the way it sounds for most English speakers, and also charting in England and Wales and in Scotland, its home ground.
- Long and formal on paper, short and casual in speech, which covers both a résumé and a playground.
- Bella is a crowded nickname. With Isabella, Gabriella and Bella itself all in wide use, she may share a shortened name with other children even while her full name stays uncommon.
- Arabella, Arabelle, Annabella and Annabel are near neighbors, and expect a fair number of people to hear or write the wrong one on first meeting.
- Four syllables want a surname that can hold them; two- and three-syllable last names sometimes ask to be said slowly.
- The recent rise means most people carrying it in the US are young, so for now it reads as a children's name more than an adult one — which changes on its own, with time.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Arabella
Feminine · #213 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Arabellas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 27,000 people named Arabella are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Arabella in 2025?
- Arabella ranks #213 among US girl names in 2025, with 1,423 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Arabella?
- About 1 in every 1,129 US girls born in 2025 was named Arabella — 1,423 in all.
- Will my child share the name Arabella with classmates?
- Arabella will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Arabella
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Zara#212 · Lennon#214 · Aitana#211 · Dahlia#215 · Myla#210 · Selah#216 · Saylor#217 · Adaline#208
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Arabella? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Arabella and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration; international figures from national statistics agencies. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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