Bula
Feminine
Bula is almost certainly a shortened Beulah, and it is also the first word any visitor to Fiji hears. Bula there is a greeting, a toast and a word meaning life or health, and it is said so constantly that arriving visitors assume it means hello, which is not quite what it means at all.
How old is the name Bula?
Bula first appears in US birth records in 1881 — 144 years ago. The typical Bula alive today was born around 1919, making them about 106 years old. Fewer than a hundred people named Bula are estimated to be alive in the US today — a true one-of-a-kind name.
When was the name Bula most popular?
Bula peaked in 1889, reaching #600 nationally. See the whole 1889 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From a Hebrew word used of a land in the prophets to Bula
The story of Bula
The Fijian greeting is a good example of a word doing more work than a translation suggests. Bula on its own means life or health; the full form wishes you a hundred years of it; and it is used on arrival, on departure, as a toast, as an acknowledgement and as an all-purpose expression of goodwill. Tourism has flattened it into hello, which is roughly what happens to every greeting that gets printed on an airport sign. The word underneath is closer to the Hebrew word behind the name shalom: not a greeting at all, but a thing being wished on somebody.
Meaningnot established
Not established
The likeliest source is Beulah, a Hebrew word that appears in the prophets as a description of a land rather than as anybody's name, and which nineteenth-century American families took up in large numbers. The Fijian word is unrelated and the resemblance is a coincidence of two languages using the same alphabet. It is worth mentioning only because a great many people meet the Fijian word first and assume the name comes from it.
How the name formed
- a Hebrew word used of a land in the prophets
- Beulah taken up as an American name in the nineteenth century
- Bula appears as a shortened spelling in the 1880s
- an unrelated Fijian word means life and health
- the name is out of American use by the middle of the century
Related forms: Beulah · Bula
Pronouncing Bula
BYOO-luh
Two syllables, stress at the front, following Beulah. The Fijian word is said BOO-lah, with a pure first vowel, and the two are not pronounced alike by anybody who knows both.
Nicknames for Bula
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
- 1881
- Most girls named
- 192043 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #600reached in 1889
- Change vs 1946
- 0.0%5 in 1950, from 5
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.
Bula in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Beulah in English — related form
- Bula in Fijian — same name
Bulas among us
Fewer than a hundred people named Bula are estimated to be alive in the US today — a true one-of-a-kind name.
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Bula 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
- Four letters, two syllables and completely unambiguous once the first vowel is settled.
- It is genuinely rare and shared with almost nobody.
- The word it collides with in another language is an unusually cheerful one.
- There is no settled origin, and the likeliest parent is a guess.
- It will be heard as Beulah, Lula and Bela by people meeting it once.
- It belongs to the oldest layer of the American record and has had no revival.
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Bula
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Bulas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. Fewer than a hundred people named Bula are estimated to be alive in the US today — a true one-of-a-kind name.
- How popular is the name Bula in 2025?
- Bula is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Bula with classmates?
- Bula will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More B names
The most-given names starting with B, all years combined.
Barbara#968 · Betty#1113 · Brenda#1525 · Beverly#1016 · Brittany#928 · Bonnie#396 · Brianna#222 · Bertha#4546
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Bula? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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