Daniela
Feminine · “God is my judge”
Daniela is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 68,514 girls against 168 boys since 1880.
Daniela is the feminine of Daniel, a name carried out of the Hebrew Bible and into nearly every European language, where each one gave it a slightly different music. In Spanish and Italian it runs dan-YEH-la, four quick syllables with the stress landing in the middle; in English mouths it often stretches to dan-ee-EL-uh. Either way it has been in continuous use for centuries and shortens, everywhere it goes, to Dani.
How old is the name Daniela?
Daniela first appears in US birth records in 1947 — 78 years ago. The typical Daniela alive today was born around 2005, making them about 20 years old. About 67,500 people named Daniela are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Daniela most popular?
Daniela peaked in 2007, reaching #108 nationally. Today it ranks #302, 194 places below that high. See the whole 2007 chart.
Daniela appears on these lists:
- Under the radar: quietly excellent picks
- Spanish and Latin names with warmth
- Names ending in -la
- all guides
Works in Spanish & Latino families too:
Where it comes from
From Daniyyel to Daniela
The story of Daniela
The root name belongs to the Book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible, whose title figure is thrown to the lions and survives the night — a story that carried the name Daniel through Jewish, Christian and later Muslim tradition alike. Latin and Greek scribes wrote it as Daniel, and medieval Europe adopted it wholesale; feminine forms followed, with -a endings in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Czech and Romanian, and -elle in French. Daniela is the form most at home in the Romance and Central European languages, and it arrived in the United States along those paths, appearing in the records here in the years after the Second World War. It is strongest today in California, Texas and Florida, states where Spanish-speaking naming traditions run deep.
Meaning
God is my judge
From the Hebrew name Daniyyel, built from din (to judge) and El (God). Daniela is the feminine form.
How the name formed
- Daniyyel
- Daniel
- Daniela
Related forms: Danielle · Daniella · Daniela · Daniela · Daniela · Daniila
Pronouncing Daniela
dan-YEH-lah
That is the Spanish and Italian pronunciation, three beats with the stress on YEH. English speakers commonly say dan-ee-EL-uh, four beats. Both are correct for the name; you may want to decide which one your family uses and say it first when introducing her.
Nicknames for Daniela
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
- 1947
- Most girls named
- 20073,079 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #108reached in 2007
- Change vs 2023
- −18.0%1,009 in 2025, from 1,231
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.
Daniela in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Danielle in French — same name
- Daniella in English — spelling variant
- Daniela in Italian — same name
- Daniela in Czech — same name
- Daniela in Romanian — same name
- Daniila in Russian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Danielas among us
people named Daniela are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 1,593 born in 2025 was named Daniela
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Daniela
- #302
- Daniela on the 2025 chart
- #198
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Daniela went to 1,009 girls in 2025, but Daniella is the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 1,672, which makes it the 198th most-given girls’ name of the year — 104 places above the chart.
- Daniela1,009
- Daniella657
and 1 rarer spelling.
About 1 girl in 961 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 1,593 for Daniela 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 Jenny test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Daniela's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Jenny climbed just as high around 1977, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jenny's path sketches the road Daniela is walking now.
Daniela 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 Daniela is headed
Daniela 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.
Daniela beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Daniela in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Works unchanged in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, Czech and Romanian — one spelling that travels across languages without translation.
- Dani is an established short form with centuries of use behind it, so the everyday version needs no inventing.
- A biblical root with an unbroken written record, so the meaning is settled rather than guessed at.
- Familiar to nearly everyone who hears it, while still uncommon enough that she is unlikely to share it with a classmate.
- The two pronunciations — dan-YEH-lah and dan-ee-EL-uh — both exist in the US, so she will spend some of her life gently correcting people, or accepting both.
- Daniela, Daniella and Danielle sit close together and are easily confused in writing. Expect the extra L and the French ending to turn up on forms and party invitations.
- Dani is shared with Daniel and Danielle, so in a class or workplace it may not be hers alone.
- It has stepped back a little from its busiest stretch, which means it is still widely recognized but reads as slightly less of-the-moment than it once did — a comfortable place for a name to sit.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Daniela
Feminine · #302 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Danielas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 67,500 people named Daniela are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Daniela?
- Daniela is the most-used spelling in US records — 1,009 of the 1,672 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Daniella.
- How popular is the name Daniela in 2025?
- Daniela ranks #302 among US girl names in 2025, with 1,009 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Daniela?
- About 1 in every 1,593 US girls born in 2025 was named Daniela — 1,009 in all.
- Will my child share the name Daniela with classmates?
- Daniela will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Daniela
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Kimberly#302 · Evelynn#301 · Adelina#304 · Sylvia#300 · Elaine#304 · Elowyn#299 · Joanna#306 · Esme#298
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Daniela? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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