Carmella
Feminine · “of Mount Carmel”
Carmella comes from a mountain — Carmel, the green ridge above the Mediterranean coast in Israel, and the medieval religious order that took its name from it. The four syllables run downhill in the mouth, kar-MEL-ah, with the same soft ending Isabella and Gabriella share. It has been on American records since the era of the great Italian migration, and it never entirely left.
How old is the name Carmella?
Carmella first appears in US birth records in 1891 — 134 years ago. The typical Carmella alive today was born around 1938, making them about 87 years old. About 9,800 people named Carmella are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Carmella most popular?
Carmella peaked in 1922, reaching #276 nationally. Today it ranks #1285, 1,009 places below that high. See the whole 1922 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Karmel to Carmella
The story of Carmella
Mount Carmel is a wooded ridge in northern Israel, and in the twelfth century a community of hermits settled there and became the Carmelite order. Devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel spread through Catholic Europe, and in Italy and Spain it produced given names: Carmela, Carmelo, Carmen. Italian families carried Carmela to the United States in large numbers around the turn of the twentieth century, and the doubled-L spelling Carmella took hold on this side of the Atlantic — which is why the name is still strongest in New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio, where those families settled. It has stayed in continuous use ever since, quietly, without ever spiking or vanishing.
Meaning
of Mount Carmel; from Hebrew karmel, 'garden' or 'orchard'
The place name came first: Mount Carmel, whose Hebrew name describes fertile, planted ground. The similarity to Latin carmen, 'song', is a coincidence of sound rather than a shared root, though the two names have long been used in the same families.
How the name formed
- Karmel
- Carmelus
- Carmela
- Carmella
Related forms: Carmela · Carmela · Carmen · Carmelina · Carme · Karmel
Pronouncing Carmella
kar-MEL-ah
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. Some Italian-American families say it closer to kar-MEL-uh, and the Italian original softens the first R.
Nicknames for Carmella
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
- 1891
- Most girls named
- 1922554 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #276reached in 1922
- Change vs 2022
- −1.1%174 in 2025, from 176
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.
Carmella in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Carmela in Italian — spelling variant
- Carmela in Spanish — spelling variant
- Carmen in Spanish — related form
- Carmelina in Italian — related form
- Carme in Catalan — related form
- Karmel in Hebrew — transliteration
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio.
Carmellas among us
people named Carmella are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 9,237 born in 2025 was named Carmella
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Carmella
- #1285
- Carmella on the 2025 chart
- #606
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Carmella went to 174 girls in 2025, but Carmela, Karmella and Karmela are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 382, which makes it the 606th most-given girls’ name of the year — 679 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 4,208 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 9,237 for Carmella 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 Oma test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Carmella's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Oma climbed just as high around 1901, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Oma's path sketches the road Carmella is walking now.
Carmella 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 Carmella is headed
Carmella 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.
Carmella beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Carmella in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Unbroken use in the United States for well over a century, so it reads as an established name rather than a new one.
- Several ready-made short forms — Carm, Carmie, Mella — that people reach for without being taught.
- The same name works in Italian and Spanish as Carmela, and connects to the widely known Carmen.
- A clear meaning with a real place behind it: the wooded ridge of Mount Carmel.
- The one-L Carmela and the two-L Carmella are both in genuine use, so expect a lifetime of spelling it out — and of correcting forms that guess wrong.
- Most people carrying it in the US today are of an older generation, so it may be heard as a grandmother's name before it is heard as a child's. That is also why a young Carmella will very likely be the only one in her school.
- It is often mistaken for Carmen, or assumed to be short for it, which it is not.
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What they receive
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Carmella
Feminine · #1285 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Carmellas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 9,800 people named Carmella are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Carmella?
- Carmella is one of 4 recorded spellings. Carmela is the more common one — 186 births in 2025 against 174 for Carmella.
- How popular is the name Carmella in 2025?
- Carmella ranks #1285 among US girl names in 2025, with 174 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Carmella?
- About 1 in every 9,237 US girls born in 2025 was named Carmella — 174 in all.
- Will my child share the name Carmella with classmates?
- Carmella will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Carmella
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Zinnia#1285 · Ryann#1285 · Rita#1285 · Micaela#1285 · Zahara#1285 · Lorena#1291 · Leela#1279 · Antonia#1279
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Carmella? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Carmella and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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