Ella

Where Ella comes from

A 19th-century shortening of Eleanor or Ellen, later also used for any name ending in -ella, such as Gabriella or Daniella. Similar abbreviations have been formed independently in many European languages, for any name containing the syllable -el-, e.g. Elisabeth.
— Wiktionary's entry for Ella
  • 2 syllables
  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #13 among girls — 1,156 babies in the first year on record.
  2. 1917
    Ella Fitzgerald born
    American jazz singer
  3. 1996
    Ella Purnell born
    British actress
  4. 2011
    Peak, #12
    9,597 babies named Ella — more than any year before or since.
  5. 2011
    The comeback
    Back to #12 after sinking to #1,150 in 1987.
In the dictionary
  • A female given name.
  • A diminutive of the female given names Eleanor, Ellen, Gabriella, and Daniella.
Namesakes
  • Ella Fitzgerald · American jazz singer, 1917–1996
  • Ella Purnell · British actress, born 1996
  • Ella Josephine Baker · African-American civil rights and human rights activist, 1903–1986
  • Ella Balinska · English actress, born 1996

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.