Akela — unisex name

What the Data Says About Akela

The Social Security Administration has registered 613 babies named Akela between 1975 and 2023, spanning 49 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a girl's name, Akela currently falls outside the top 1,000 girls' names for 2023. The name reached its historical peak in 1996, when 27 babies received it in a single year. Akela is classified as unisex in SSA records: the opposite-sex variant accounts for 38 additional births since 2016.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Akela performed strongest in the 1990s, accumulating 197 births during that ten-year window. Across the 6 decades of recorded activity, Akela shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in California, which accounts for 17 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by Illinois. In total, SSA state-level files list Akela in 2 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Akela in our reference dataset. These figures derive from SSA's annual national and state-level name files, which include any name appearing at least five times in a given year or state-year; names below that threshold are suppressed for privacy and therefore excluded from the totals shown here. The 613 total represents a lower bound — actual usage may be higher in years or states where the count fell below the disclosure floor. This page is provided for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute personal, legal, or naming advice.