Nella

Where Nella comes from

Nella hasn't made it into the dictionaries we draw on, and nobody well known enough for an encyclopedia has carried it yet — so for now its story is the one the SSA record tells. Names that spell a familiar sound a new way often live here for a while before anyone writes them down.

  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #547 among girls — 10 babies in the first year on record.
  2. 1881
    Peak, #384
    19 babies named Nella — more than any year before or since.
  3. 1883
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #817.
  4. 1886
    Nella Walker born
    actress
  5. 1891
    Nella Larsen born
    American novelist, librarian, nurse
In the dictionary

No dictionary entry for this spelling — which is its own kind of rare.

Namesakes
  • Nella Larsen · American novelist, librarian, nurse, 1891–1964
  • Nella Walker · actress, 1886–1971
  • Nella Martinetti · Swiss singer, 1946–2011
  • Nella Maria Bonora · Italian actress, 1904–1990
  • Nella Bielski · French writer, 1937–2020

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.