Bellah
Feminine · “beautiful”
Latin had two words that look almost the same and mean opposite things. Bellus is pretty, charming, fine — it gives belle, beauty, embellish. Bellum is war — it gives bellicose, belligerent, rebel and antebellum. They are unrelated, and the resemblance has confused readers for two thousand years.
How old is the name Bellah?
Bellah first appears in US birth records in 2003 — 22 years ago. The typical Bellah is a kid of about 12 — this name's wave is very recent. About 500 people named Bellah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Bellah most popular?
Bellah peaked in 2012, reaching #3711 nationally. Today it ranks #11932, 8,221 places below that high. See the whole 2012 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From bellus to Bellah
The story of Bellah
Bella has two quite separate lives. It is the ordinary Italian adjective, given as a name in Italy and Spain for centuries; and it is the tail end of Isabella, Arabella, Annabella and Christabella, cut loose and given alone, which is how most English-speaking Bellas got there. The two converged in the last twenty years, when a series of enormously read novels gave the name to their narrator and the sound became one of the most given in the country. The respellings arrived on schedule. What the h at the end does is purely visual: it is silent, it adds a letter to a five-letter word, and it distinguishes the spelling from a very common one.
Meaning
beautiful
Italian bella, beautiful, from Latin bellus, pretty or charming. The name is also a short form of Isabella and Arabella, in which case the meaning belongs to those names instead. The final h is an American addition and changes nothing about either reading.
How the name formed
- bellus
- bella
- Bella
- Bellah
Related forms: Bella · Bella · Belle
Pronouncing Bellah
BEL-uh
Two syllables, stress on the first. The h is silent. Italian holds the doubled l slightly longer than English does, which is the only difference between the two.
Nicknames for Bellah
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
- 2003
- Most girls named
- 201242 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3711reached in 2012
- Change vs 2024
- −36.4%7 in 2025, from 11
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.
Bellah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Bella in Italian — same name
- Bella in Spanish — same name
- Belle in French — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas.
Bellahs among us
people named Bellah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 229,610 born in 2025 was named Bellah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Bellah
- #11932
- Bellah on the 2025 chart
- #144
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Bellah went to 7 girls in 2025, but Bella and Bela are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 2,157, which makes it the 144th most-given girls’ name of the year — 11,788 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 745 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 229,610 for Bellah itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Felissa test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Bellah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Felissa climbed just as high around 1970, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Felissa's path sketches the road Bellah is walking now.
Bellah 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
Bellah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Bellah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled Latin meaning in a word still current in three languages.
- Three short forms, two of which are full names of their own.
- Two syllables that everyone can already say.
- Bella is far commoner and the h will simply be dropped by most people.
- It means beautiful, which is a description a person has to carry rather than earn.
- A very widely read series of novels attached the name to one character for a generation.
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What they receive
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Bellah
Feminine · #11932 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Bellahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 500 people named Bellah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Bellah?
- Bellah is one of 3 recorded spellings. Bella is the more common one — 2,129 births in 2025 against 7 for Bellah.
- How popular is the name Bellah in 2025?
- Bellah ranks #11932 among US girl names in 2025, with 7 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Bellah?
- About 1 in every 229,610 US girls born in 2025 was named Bellah — 7 in all.
- Will my child share the name Bellah with classmates?
- Bellah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Bellah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Vina#11932 · Retta#11932 · Missouri#11932 · Iola#11932 · Eddie#11932 · Thomas#11932 · Louetta#11932 · Elvina#11932
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Bellah? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Bellah and another name?
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Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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