Vela
Feminine · “sails”
Vela is a piece of a broken ship. The Greeks saw Jason's Argo in the southern sky as one enormous constellation, and in the eighteenth century an astronomer took it apart into three: Carina the keel, Puppis the stern, and Vela the sails.
How old is the name Vela?
Vela first appears in US birth records in 1888 — 137 years ago. The typical Vela alive today was born around 1928, making them about 97 years old. About 400 people named Vela are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Vela most popular?
Vela peaked in 1905, reaching #926 nationally. Today it ranks #6546, 5,620 places below that high. See the whole 1905 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From velum to Vela
The story of Vela
Argo Navis was the largest constellation in the sky, and Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille divided it in the 1750s while cataloguing the southern stars from the Cape of Good Hope; it is the only classical constellation ever formally dismembered. Vela took the sails. Separately, Spanish and Italian have vela as an everyday word, and the Spanish sense of a night vigil, from the verb velar, to keep watch, gave it a devotional life as well. As an American given name Vela is rare and early, with its best year in 1905, which places it with the short vowel-framed women's names of that generation rather than with any modern star-naming fashion.
Meaning
sails; or candle, vigil
Latin vela is the plural of velum, a sail or a cloth covering, and is the constellation's name. Spanish vela, from the same root, means a candle, a sail, or a night vigil, all three senses being current. The constellation and the Spanish word are the same Latin origin arriving by two routes, and both are available behind the name.
How the name formed
- velum
- vela
- Vela
Related forms: Vela · Vela · Vela
Pronouncing Vela
VEH-lah
Two syllables with the stress on the first. English speakers often say VEE-lah with a long e, which is the ordinary American adaptation of a Latin word.
Nicknames for Vela
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
- 1888
- Most girls named
- 191927 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #926reached in 1905
- Change vs 2023
- −34.6%17 in 2025, from 26
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.
Vela in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Vela in Spanish — same name
- Vela in Italian — same name
- Vela in Latin — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California.
Velas among us
people named Vela are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 94,545 born in 2025 was named Vela
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Vela
- #6546
- Vela on the 2025 chart
- #916
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Vela went to 17 girls in 2025, but Vella is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 44, which makes it the 916th most-given girls’ name of the year — 5,630 places above the chart.
- Vella27
- Vela17
About 1 girl in 36,529 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 94,545 for Vela 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
Fashion outlook
Vela 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
Vela beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Vela in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A constellation, a Latin word and a Spanish word all behind four letters.
- Vee and Ela are two short forms with independent lives.
- Very rare in the United States while being entirely easy to say.
- Two pronunciations circulate, the Spanish and the anglicized.
- Vela, Velma and Bella are all nearby and get substituted.
- In Spanish the everyday sense is a candle rather than a sail.
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Vela
Feminine · #6546 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Velas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 400 people named Vela are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Vela?
- Vela is one of 2 recorded spellings. Vella is the more common one — 27 births in 2025 against 17 for Vela.
- How popular is the name Vela in 2025?
- Vela ranks #6546 among US girl names in 2025, with 17 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Vela?
- About 1 in every 94,545 US girls born in 2025 was named Vela — 17 in all.
- Will my child share the name Vela with classmates?
- Vela will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Vela
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Roseann#6546 · Solveig#6546 · Elona#6546 · Rosette#6546 · Bradie#6546 · Rida#6546 · Gwendalyn#6546 · Lorene#6546
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Vela? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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