Tamela
Feminine · “date palm”
Tamela is a date palm with an American ending. Hebrew tamar names the tree, and it is one of the oldest women's names in the Bible — three separate women carry it in the Hebrew scriptures, and the palm was a serious thing to be named for in a desert country, being food, shade and building material at once.
How old is the name Tamela?
Tamela first appears in US birth records in 1947 — 78 years ago. The typical Tamela alive today was born around 1967, making them about 58 years old. About 6,600 people named Tamela are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Tamela most popular?
Tamela peaked in 1959, reaching #492 nationally. See the whole 1959 chart.
Where it comes from
From tamar to Tamela
The story of Tamela
Tamar traveled east as well as west: Georgia had a queen Tamar in the twelfth century who is still a national figure, and the name is common across the Caucasus and Russia in that form. It reached English-speaking countries mostly as Tamara in the twentieth century, and American naming then did what it does with any established base — lengthened it. The -ela and -ala endings were productive in exactly those decades, giving Tamela, Pamela's neighbors and a shelf of similar names built on shorter ones.
Meaning
date palm
Hebrew tamar is the date palm, and the name appears in Genesis and in the books of Samuel. In a landscape where the tree provided fruit, sugar, wood, rope and shade, it was among the most valuable plants a person could name a daughter for, so the image is not decorative. Tamara is the Russian and Georgian form. The -ela ending is a twentieth-century American addition and carries nothing of its own.
How the name formed
- tamar
- Tamara
- Tamela
Related forms: תָּמָר · Tamar · Tamara
Pronouncing Tamela
TAM-uh-luh
TAM-uh-luh, three syllables, stress at the front, the middle reduced. Some say tuh-MEE-luh, moving the weight to the middle, and both are heard. The spelling settles neither, so the household does.
Nicknames for Tamela
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
- 1947
- Most girls named
- 1959390 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #492reached in 1959
- Change vs 2013
- 0.0%6 in 2018, 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.
Tamela in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- תָּמָר in Hebrew — transliteration
- Tamar in Georgian — same name
- Tamara in Russian — same name
Tamelas among us
people named Tamela 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
Tamela 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 Hebrew behind it is concrete, ancient and genuinely worth explaining.
- Tammy and Tam are both available and work in any English-speaking setting.
- Three syllables ending in a vowel, which balances a short surname.
- The stress falls in two places depending on the speaker, so the name gets said wrong regularly.
- Pamela, Tamara and Tamala are all close enough to be substituted.
- The -ela ending places the name in the middle of the last century fairly precisely.
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What they receive
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Tamela
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Tamelas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 6,600 people named Tamela are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Tamela in 2025?
- Tamela is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Tamela with classmates?
- Tamela will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More T names
The most-given names starting with T, all years combined.
Teresa#908 · Theresa#1548 · Tiffany#878 · Tammy#3645 · Taylor#403 · Tina#2778 · Tracy#2153 · Thelma#4661
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Tamela? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Tamela and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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