Zela
Feminine
Veni, vidi, vici was about Zela. Caesar wrote it in 47 BC after destroying Pharnaces of Pontus at a town in what is now northern Turkey, and the three words were reportedly displayed at his triumph rather than spoken. The most quoted sentence in Latin is a report on a battle nobody remembers, at a place that gave its name to a girl.
How old is the name Zela?
Zela first appears in US birth records in 1889 — 136 years ago. The typical Zela alive today was born around 1923, making them about 102 years old. About 200 people named Zela are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Zela most popular?
Zela peaked in 1897, reaching #931 nationally. Today it ranks #8362, 7,431 places below that high. See the whole 1897 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Zela
Pharnaces II, son of Mithridates, took advantage of the Roman civil war to seize territory in Asia Minor. Caesar, coming from Egypt, met him at Zela in August 47 BC and finished the campaign in about five hours. The famous three words come from Suetonius and Plutarch, who disagree about whether Caesar wrote them in a dispatch to Rome or had them carried on a placard in his Pontic triumph; Plutarch says the latter. What makes the phrase famous is its form rather than its content: three verbs, first person perfect, identical in length and rhythm, with the alliteration and the near-rhyme carrying the whole effect. It has been imitated in every European language since and is one of the very few Latin sentences that most people can complete.
Meaningscholars disagree
Not established
Zela in American records is most likely a short form of Zelda, Zelia or Zelma, or a variant of Zella. Zelda is a German short form of Griselda; Zelia may come from Latin zelus, zeal, itself Greek. There is also an ancient town of Zela in Pontus, and the name may be taken from it, though nothing connects the American use to the place. It peaks in 1897.
Pronouncing Zela
ZEE-lah
Two syllables, stress on the first. ZEH-lah with a short first vowel is also heard. The doubled l of Zella marks the vowel short and is the commoner spelling of that reading.
Nicknames for Zela
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
- 1889
- Most girls named
- 192420 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #931reached in 1897
- Change vs 2024
- +100.0%12 in 2025, 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.
Zela in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Zella in English — spelling variant
Zelas among us
people named Zela are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 133,939 born in 2025 was named Zela
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Zela
- #8362
- Zela on the 2025 chart
- #825
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Zela went to 12 girls in 2025, but Zella and Zelah are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 135, which makes it the 825th most-given girls’ name of the year — 7,537 places above the chart.
- Zella117
- Zela12
- Zelah6
About 1 girl in 11,906 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 133,939 for Zela 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
Zela 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
Zela beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Zela in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Short, distinctive and easy to write.
- The initial Z makes it unusually memorable.
- It fits the revival of nineteenth-century short names.
- Two vowel readings of the first syllable circulate.
- Zella and Zelia are near neighbors.
- Which longer name it stands for is not recoverable.
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Zela
Feminine · #8362 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Zelas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 200 people named Zela are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Zela?
- Zela is one of 3 recorded spellings. Zella is the more common one — 117 births in 2025 against 12 for Zela.
- How popular is the name Zela in 2025?
- Zela ranks #8362 among US girl names in 2025, with 12 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Zela?
- About 1 in every 133,939 US girls born in 2025 was named Zela — 12 in all.
- Will my child share the name Zela with classmates?
- Zela will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Zela
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lona#8362 · Peggy#8362 · Leda#8362 · Margarette#8362 · Rella#8362 · Evalena#8362 · Vashti#8362 · Nona#8362
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Zela? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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