Stella
Feminine · Latin roots · “Star (Latin)”
Stella is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 206,906 girls against 382 boys since 1880.
Stella is the Latin word for star, kept whole and unaltered for two thousand years. Sir Philip Sidney gave it to English as a name rather than a noun in his sonnet sequence Astrophil and Stella, written in the 1580s, and it has been said aloud ever since — two syllables, both of them easy, with the double-l holding the middle of the word steady.
How old is the name Stella?
Stella was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Stella alive today was born around 1948, making them about 77 years old. About 111,000 people named Stella are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Stella most popular?
Stella peaked in 2018, reaching #38 nationally. Today it ranks #52, 14 places below that high. See the whole 2018 chart.
Where it comes from
From stella (Latin, 'star') to Stella
The story of Stella
The word came first: stella, star, in ordinary Latin. Medieval Christian hymnody turned it into a title for the Virgin Mary — Stella Maris, star of the sea, sung in the hymn Ave Maris Stella — and Italian and Spanish speakers kept it as a personal name. In English it arrived through poetry rather than the church: Sidney used Stella for the beloved of his sonnet sequence in the 1580s, and Jonathan Swift later addressed his Journal to Stella to Esther Johnson under that borrowed name. By the nineteenth century it was in ordinary use on both sides of the Atlantic, and it has stayed there.
Meaning
Star (Latin)
Stella is simply the Latin noun for a star, used unchanged as a given name.
Cultural footprint
Stella McCartney (b. 1971) — Sustainable-fashion designer, Paul McCartney's daughter
Stella Adler (b. 1901) — Legendary acting teacher who trained Marlon Brando
Source: Wikidata — the one source on this page that is not an official agency.
How the name formed
- stellaLatin, 'star'
- Stella Marismedieval Marian title
- StellaItalian and Spanish given name
- StellaEnglish, from Sidney's sonnets
Related forms: Stella · Estrella · Estelle · Estrela · Stela · Stella
Pronouncing Stella
STEL-uh
Stress on the first syllable. English, Italian and Spanish speakers all land on much the same sound, and it survives dictation over the phone without a spelling.
Nicknames for Stella
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
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 20194,997 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #38reached in 2018
- Change vs 2022
- −14.7%4,136 in 2025, from 4,849
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.
Stella in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Stella in Italian — same name
- Estrella in Spanish — related form
- Estelle in French — related form
- Estrela in Portuguese — related form
- Stela in Romanian — spelling variant
- Stella in Polish — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida. International figures from Statistics Canada. Sources
Stellas among us
people named Stella are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 389 born in 2025 was named Stella
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Paula test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Stella's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Paula climbed just as high around 1954, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Paula's path sketches the road Stella is walking now.
Stella has held the top-100 across 6 different decades — it has never depended on fashion, and names like that read the same at any age.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Stella is headed
Stella 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.
Stella beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Stella in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Four letters longer than it looks: spelled exactly as it sounds, with no variant spellings competing for it.
- The meaning is transparent to anyone who has met a Latin root — no explanation required.
- Recognized across Italian, Spanish, Polish and English, and it charts in Canada as well as the US.
- Well known everywhere but rarely doubled up — most Stellas go through school without meeting another.
- A great many people will hear Stanley Kowalski bellowing it in A Streetcar Named Desire. It is the single loudest association the name carries, and it is not going anywhere.
- Stella Artois means the name gets a beer joke now and then, mostly from adults.
- It sits in a large family of -ella and -a endings currently in wide use, so it can blend with Ella, Bella and Luna in a roll call.
- The name is strongly represented among older generations as well as young children, so a Stella may share it with someone several decades her senior.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Stella
Feminine · Latin roots · #52 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Stellas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 111,000 people named Stella are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Stella in 2025?
- Stella ranks #52 among US girl names in 2025, with 4,136 babies given the name.
- How common is the name Stella?
- About 1 in every 389 US girls born in 2025 was named Stella — 4,136 in all.
- Will my child share the name Stella with classmates?
- Stella will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Stella
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Josephine#53 · Delilah#51 · Sadie#50 · Victoria#54 · Eloise#49 · Sophie#55 · Riley#48 · Hannah#56
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Stella? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Stella and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration; international figures from national statistics agencies. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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