Stella
Stella is a girl's name that peaked in 2018, when it was the 38th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 52nd. About 110,000 Stellas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 11.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Stella boys named Stella
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 207,288
- Estimated living today
- 110,000
- Median age today
- 11
- Peak year
- 2018
- Best rank
- 38th
- Rank in 2025
- 52nd
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 206,906 / 382
How old the living Stellas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 207,288 babies given the name since 1880, about 110,000 are alive — 53 in every hundred. Roughly 75,000 of them are children and 17,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2014 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 Latin
From Latin stēlla (“star”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Stellas
- Stella McCartney (born 1971)British fashion designer
- Stella Mwangi (born 1986)Kenyan-Norwegian singer, rapper and songwriter
- Stella Adler (1901–1992)American actress and acting teacher
- Stella Stevens (1938–2023)American actress
- Stella Maxwell (born 1990)British model
- Stella Gibbons (1902–1989)British writer
- Stella Kyriakides (born 1956)Cypriot politician
- Stella Rimington (1935–2025)British director of MI5
People named Stella with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Stella is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Stella is most concentrated in New Mexico (1.8×), Kentucky (1.6×), Pennsylvania (1.4×), West Virginia (1.4×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2018
The most popular girls’ names the year Stella peaked:
Stella elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France girls | Stella +1 spelling | 19,215 | 93rd |
| Italy girls | Stella | 12,439 | — |
| Sweden girls | Stella | 8,517 | 14th |
| England and Wales girls | Stella | 3,542 | 294th |
| Switzerland girls | Stella | 2,077 | 50th |
| Belgium girls | Stella | 1,764 | 50th |
| New Zealand girls | Stella | 1,752 | 29th |
| Norway girls | Stella | 1,746 | 64th |
| Poland girls | Stella | 1,089 birth registrations | 147th |
| Ireland girls | Stella | 832 | 103rd |
| Scotland girls | Stella | 563 | 158th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Stella | 111 | 181st |
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.
Stella: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Stella | 1,362 | 0.109% | 68th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Stella | 611 | 0.140% | 32nd |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Stella | 102 | 0.156% | 33rd |
| Romansh girls | Switzerland | Stella | 2 | 0.054% | 13th |
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, Stella is most concentrated in Geneva, where 0.19% of children were given it – 196 of them.
Stella: rank by region
In 2025, Stella was given 5 times or more in 3 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Stella | 59 | 77 |
| Wallonia | Stella | 141 | 18 |
| Brussels | Stella | 107 | 10 |
In 2019, Stella was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Stella | 10 | 1 |
In 2025, Stella was given 2 times or more in 11 regions of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dolnośląskie | Stella | 123 | 8 |
| Kujawsko-Pomorskie | Stella | 102 | 6 |
| Lubuskie | Stella | 116 | 3 |
| Małopolskie | Stella | 177 | 4 |
| Mazowieckie | Stella | 145 | 12 |
| Opolskie | Stella | 123 | 2 |
| Podkarpackie | Stella | 139 | 3 |
| Pomorskie | Stella | 116 | 8 |
| Śląskie | Stella | 174 | 5 |
| Wielkopolskie | Stella | 150 | 6 |
| Zachodniopomorskie | Stella | 131 | 4 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Stella appears in the lists for Province of Flemish Brabant (37th), Province of East Flanders (43rd), Province of Limburg (69th), Province of Antwerp (78th), Province of West Flanders (86th), Province of Liège (98th), Brussels-Capital Region (107th) and Province of Hainaut (153rd).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names, 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.
Stella by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 298 | 76th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Stella 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 | Stella | 3,032 | 3,511 |
| the Netherlands girls | Stella | 2,555 | 3,194 |
| the Netherlands boys | Stella | — | 30 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026, the Netherlands on 1 January 2018 – 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 Stella lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 1,463 women called Stella 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Balears, Illes | Stella | 72 | 0.115 | 676 |
| Araba/Álava | Stella | 19 | 0.109 | 795 |
| Málaga | Stella | 98 | 0.107 | 694 |
| Alicante/Alacant | Stella | 108 | 0.105 | 776 |
| Navarra | Stella | 35 | 0.101 | 808 |
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Stella | 53 | 0.096 | 972 |
Listed in 39 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 13 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
Stella 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.