Bela
Bela reached its high-water mark in 2010 at number 3,572, and has been recorded 1,295 times in all. It is given to both boys and girls. In 2025 it ranked 5,722nd. About 1,100 Belas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 17.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Bela boys named Bela
Girls and boys called Bela
years more girls than boys years more boys than girls
Both, throughout, without either side ever taking it over: 810 girls and 485 boys in all, and in 2024 the split was 30 to 0.
The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 21 years in which at least 25 babies got it. The line touches the middle more often than there are crossings marked: a year or two on the other side is not a name changing hands, and only a move that holds for 5 counted years and reaches 60/40 is recorded as one. All 581 names that changed sex.
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 1,295
- Estimated living today
- 1,100
- Median age today
- 17
- Peak year
- 2010
- Best rank
- 3,572nd
- Rank in 2025
- 5,722nd
- First recorded
- 1912
- Girls / boys
- 810 / 485
How old the living Belas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 1,295 babies given the name since 1912, about 1,100 are alive — 83 in every hundred. Roughly 570 of them are children and 50 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2008 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.
Notable Belas
- Béla Bartók (1881–1945)Hungarian composer and pianist
- Bela Lugosi (1882–1956)Hungarian-American actor
- Béla Kun (1886–1938)Hungarian Communist revolutionary and politician, the de facto leader of the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919, People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs
- Béla Tarr (1955–2026)Hungarian filmmaker and anarchist
- Béla IV of Hungary (1206–1270)King of Hungary
- Béla III of Hungary (1148–1196)King of Hungary and Croatia from 1172 to 1196
- Béla II of Hungary (1108–1141)Hungarian king
- Béla I of Hungary (1016–1063)King of Hungary
People named Bela with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Bela is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Bela is most concentrated in California (7.3×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2010
The most popular girls’ names the year Bela peaked:
Bela elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Switzerland boys | Bela +1 spelling | 291 | 523rd |
| England and Wales girls | Bela | 155 | 2,058th |
| France girls | Bela +1 spelling | 75 | 5,385th |
| France boys | Bela | 20 | 1,571st |
| England and Wales boys | Bela | 12 | 3,004th |
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.
Bela: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | Bela | 160 | 0.013% | 385th |
| German boys | Switzerland | Béla | 126 | 0.010% | 479th |
| French boys | Switzerland | Béla | 2 | 0.000% | 888th |
| French boys | Switzerland | Bela | 2 | 0.000% | 627th |
| Romansh boys | Switzerland | Béla | 1 | 0.027% | 12th |
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, Bela is most concentrated in Basel-Stadt, where 0.07% of children were given it – 27 of them.
Bela by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 252 | 71st |
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 50 | 274th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Bela 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 boys | Béla | 15 | 22 |
| Finland girls | Bela | 7 | 11 |
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 Bela lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 314 women called Bela 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lugo | Bela | 11 | 0.066 | 929 |
| Alicante/Alacant | Bela | 28 | 0.027 | 1,986 |
| Pontevedra | Bela | 13 | 0.027 | 1,468 |
| Barcelona | Bela | 74 | 0.024 | 1,939 |
| Tarragona | Bela | 9 | 0.021 | 2,273 |
| Valencia/València | Bela | 27 | 0.019 | 2,164 |
Listed in 16 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 36 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Bela 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.