Ceola
Feminine
Ceola is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 2,164 girls against 21 boys since 1880.
Ceola cannot be connected to anything older, and it is worth saying that at the top rather than burying it. There is an Old English element that looks promising and it will not do the job; there is a family of similar American names and none of them is the parent. The name arrives without an ancestor.
How old is the name Ceola?
Ceola first appears in US birth records in 1890 — 135 years ago. The typical Ceola alive today was born around 1928, making them about 97 years old. About 600 people named Ceola are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Ceola most popular?
Ceola peaked in 1906, reaching #793 nationally. See the whole 1906 chart.
Where it comes from
From Ceola to Ceola
The story of Ceola
The tempting connection is to an Old English element that opened a line of Anglo-Saxon kings and bishops, and it does not work. That element vanished from English naming after the Conquest and left no descendants at all; there is a gap of some eight hundred years between its last use and the first appearance of this name in an American register, with nothing in between. Names do not survive underground for eight centuries and then resurface in Alabama. What the name does belong to is a set of American women's names ending in -ola — Leola, Viola, Zeola, Ola itself — which appear together in the same decades and the same places, and which were built out of that ending rather than inherited through it.
Meaningnot established
Not established
No source can be established. The resemblance to an Old English word is discussed below and does not survive examination. Any meaning offered on any page for this name has been invented, including the ones that sound scholarly.
How the name formed
- Ceola
- Ciola
Pronouncing Ceola
see-OH-luh
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. Some families front it and say SEE-oh-luh, and nothing in the spelling settles the question.
Nicknames for Ceola
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
- 1890
- Most girls named
- 192265 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #793reached in 1906
- Change vs 1984
- −16.7%5 in 1988, from 6
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.
Ceolas among us
people named Ceola 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
Ceola 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
- The rhythm is unusual and gives the name a shape few others have.
- Ola sits inside it as a short form of the same vintage.
- It is genuinely one of a kind in any modern classroom.
- There is no meaning and no ancestry, and honest pages say so.
- The stress placement is unsettled and strangers will guess.
- The spelling is recorded for a few boys, but nearly every child with it is a girl.
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What they receive
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Ceola
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Ceolas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Ceola are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Ceola in 2025?
- Ceola is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Ceola with classmates?
- Ceola will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More C names
The most-given names starting with C, all years combined.
Carol#2239 · Cynthia#1013 · Catherine#313 · Christine#1272 · Carolyn#1222 · Christina#770 · Charlotte#2 · Cheryl#4352
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Ceola? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Ceola and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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