Mayela
Feminine · “Hebrew Miryam and Greek Helene”
Spanish fuses Maria with whatever follows it. Maribel is Maria Isabel, Marisol is Maria Soledad, Maite is Maria Teresa, and Mayela appears to be Maria Elena worn down the same way.
How old is the name Mayela?
Mayela first appears in US birth records in 1965 — 60 years ago. The typical Mayela alive today was born around 2000, making them about 25 years old. About 900 people named Mayela are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Mayela most popular?
Mayela peaked in 1995, reaching #3780 nationally. Today it ranks #10917, 7,137 places below that high. See the whole 1995 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Maria Elena to Mayela
The story of Mayela
Spanish compound names are spoken as units, and units wear down. Maria Isabel becomes Maribel, Maria Soledad becomes Marisol, Maria Teresa becomes Maite, Maria Luisa becomes Marisa or Maluisa, Maria Jose becomes Marijose and then Majo. The fused forms then become names in their own right, given to children whose parents have no intention of invoking the two originals, which is how Maribel and Marisol ended up on birth certificates as single names. Mayela belongs to that family. What makes the process visible is the stress: the compound keeps a single main stress where the two names would have had two, which is the audible sign that a phrase has become a word.
Meaningscholars disagree
Hebrew Miryam and Greek Helene
Mayela is most plausibly a contraction of Maria Elena, following the Spanish habit of fusing compound names. It may equally be an independent Latin American formation. Neither Miryam nor Helene has a settled meaning. The peak is 1995.
How the name formed
- Maria Elena
- Mayela
Related forms: Mayela · Marielena
Pronouncing Mayela
mah-YEH-lah
Three syllables, stress on the second. The y is a full consonant here, not a vowel.
Nicknames for Mayela
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
- 1965
- Most girls named
- 200634 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3780reached in 1995
- Change vs 2024
- −63.6%8 in 2025, from 22
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.
Mayela in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Mayela in Spanish — same name
- Marielena in Spanish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California.
Mayelas among us
people named Mayela are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 200,908 born in 2025 was named Mayela
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Mayela
- #10917
- Mayela on the 2025 chart
- #939
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Mayela went to 8 girls in 2025, but Mayella and Maiella are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 21, which makes it the 939th most-given girls’ name of the year — 9,978 places above the chart.
- Mayela8
- Mayella7
- Maiella6
About 1 girl in 76,537 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 200,908 for Mayela 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 Janny test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Mayela's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Janny climbed just as high around 1955, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Janny's path sketches the road Mayela is walking now.
Mayela 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
Mayela beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Mayela in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Three open syllables with a clear central stress.
- Both possible source names are among the most widely used in Europe.
- Ela works as a short form.
- It will be heard as Mariela or Micaela.
- Its formation is probable rather than documented.
- The 1995 peak dates its American use.
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What they receive
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Mayela
Feminine · #10917 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Mayelas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 900 people named Mayela are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Mayela?
- Mayela is the most-used spelling in US records — 8 of the 21 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Mayella and Maiella.
- How popular is the name Mayela in 2025?
- Mayela ranks #10917 among US girl names in 2025, with 8 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Mayela?
- About 1 in every 200,908 US girls born in 2025 was named Mayela — 8 in all.
- Will my child share the name Mayela with classmates?
- Mayela will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Mayela
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Edythe#10917 · Tessie#10917 · Drusilla#10917 · Eugenie#10917 · Ivah#10917 · Karri#10917 · Claribel#10917 · Myrtle#10917
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Mayela? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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