Adela
Adela is a girl's name that peaked in 2015, when it was the 1,124th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 1,150th. About 9,500 Adelas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 28.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Adela
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 14,105
- Estimated living today
- 9,500
- Median age today
- 28
- Peak year
- 2015
- Best rank
- 1,124th
- Rank in 2025
- 1,150th
- First recorded
- 1880
How old the living Adelas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 14,105 babies given the name since 1880, about 9,500 are alive — 67 in every hundred. Roughly 3,400 of them are children and 1,900 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1997 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Germanic languages
Latinate form of French Adèle, short form of Germanic compound names beginning with Proto-Germanic *aþalaz (“noble”). Compare Old English æþele, English athel.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Adelas
- Adela (born 1969)Mexican actress
- Adela of Normandy (1067–1138)Countess of Blois from 1089 to 1102
- Adela of France (1009–1079)Countess of Flanders
- Adela of Flanders (1065–1115)Danish royal consort
- Adela Zamudio (1854–1928)Bolivian writer
- Mary Adela Blagg (1858–1944)British astronomer
- Adela Pankhurst (1885–1961)British-Australian suffragette and political activist
- Lady Adela (1847–1924)tribal chief
People named Adela with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Adela is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Adela is most concentrated in New Mexico (7.6×), Texas (5.4×), California (2.8×), Arizona (2.8×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2015
The most popular girls’ names the year Adela peaked:
Adela elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Poland girls | Adela +1 spelling | 2,485 birth registrations | 103rd |
| France girls | Adela +2 spellings | 840 | 1,328th |
| England and Wales girls | Adela | 549 | 936th |
| Italy girls | Adela | 286 | — |
| Switzerland girls | Adela | 160 | 518th |
| Ireland girls | Adela | 68 | 510th |
| Belgium girls | Adela | 53 | 1,087th |
| Scotland girls | Adela | 13 | 665th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Adela: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Adela | 103 | 0.008% | 507th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Adela | 55 | 0.013% | 277th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Adela | 2 | 0.003% | 168th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Adela is most concentrated in Zurich, where 0.01% of children were given it – 33 of them.
Adela: rank by region
In 2024, Adela was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Adela | 839 | 5 |
In 2025, Adela was given 2 times or more in 16 regions of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dolnośląskie | Adela | 86 | 19 |
| Kujawsko-Pomorskie | Adela | 167 | 2 |
| Lubelskie | Adela | 73 | 12 |
| Lubuskie | Adela | 116 | 3 |
| Łódzkie | Adela | 101 | 9 |
| Małopolskie | Adela | 74 | 36 |
| Mazowieckie | Adela | 86 | 38 |
| Opolskie | Adela | 123 | 2 |
| Podkarpackie | Adela | 72 | 13 |
| Podlaskie | Adela | 64 | 12 |
| Pomorskie | Adela | 101 | 11 |
| Śląskie | Adela | 101 | 16 |
| Świętokrzyskie | Adela | 87 | 4 |
| Warmińsko-Mazurskie | Adela | 95 | 4 |
| Wielkopolskie | Adela | 106 | 13 |
| Zachodniopomorskie | Adela | 93 | 7 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Adela by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 2 | 555th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Adela among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Adela | 137 | 255 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Adela lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 23,159 women called Adela were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Albacete | Adela | 380 | 1.952 | 114 |
| Zamora | Adela | 139 | 1.663 | 127 |
| León | Adela | 365 | 1.587 | 128 |
| Almería | Adela | 596 | 1.580 | 105 |
| Soria | Adela | 69 | 1.556 | 134 |
| Cuenca | Adela | 142 | 1.436 | 137 |
Listed in 52 of Spain's 52 provinces. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Adela against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.