Bulah
Feminine · “married”
Beulah is not a person in the Bible. It is a word Isaiah gives to a country: the land shall no more be called desolate, but Beulah, meaning married — a promise about a place, addressed to a nation, which English readers turned into a name for their daughters.
How old is the name Bulah?
Bulah was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Bulah alive today was born around 1920, making them about 105 years old. About 400 people named Bulah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Bulah most popular?
Bulah peaked in 1905, reaching #473 nationally. See the whole 1905 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Beulah to Bulah
The story of Bulah
What made the word a name was not the prophet but an allegory. In Pilgrim's Progress the travelers reach the Land of Beulah at the end of the journey, a pleasant country within sight of the celestial city where the air is sweet and they can hear the voices from over the river. That passage was read aloud in English-speaking households for two centuries, produced a family of hymns about Beulah Land, and put the word into ordinary use as a girl's name. Bulah is the American spelling that drops the e, and it is in the record from the very first year of the count.
Meaning
married
The Hebrew is a passive participle meaning married or possessed, applied to land rather than to a woman. The image is of a country reunited with the God who owns it.
How the name formed
- Beulah
- Bulah
Related forms: Beulah
Pronouncing Bulah
BYOO-luh
Two syllables with the weight at the front. The dropped e changes nothing; Beulah and Bulah are said identically.
Nicknames for Bulah
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
- 1919115 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #473reached in 1905
- Change vs 1957
- 0.0%7 in 1963, from 7
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.
Bulah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Beulah in Hebrew — transliteration
Bulahs among us
people named Bulah 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
Bulah 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 said correctly at sight by anyone who has met the commoner spelling.
- The passage behind it is one of the most quoted in English devotional writing.
- It has an unbroken run in American records from the first year they were kept.
- Beulah is the standard spelling and will be written instead.
- The word means married, which is an unusual thing to name a child.
- It reads unmistakably as a name of the nineteenth century.
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Bulah
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Bulahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 400 people named Bulah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Bulah in 2025?
- Bulah is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Bulah with classmates?
- Bulah 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 Bulah? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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