Stela
Stela was given to 8 girls in 2025, #11,804 among girls’ names; 204 Americans have been recorded with it since 2000 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Stela by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
What does Stela mean?
Wiktionary, Polish section
Stela is “a female given name from Latin, equivalent to English Stella”
Learned borrowing from Latin Stēlla. Doublet of aster and Stella.
/ˈstɛ.la/
Meaning: Wiktionary, Polish section, as of Sep 25, 2026 (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
How popular is Stela?
#11,804 among girls’ names, 2025
Stela fell from #10,767 in 2015 to #11,804 in 2025 among girls’ names; its share of girls born fell from 5.6 to 5.0 per million.
14 babies in 2021, the peak
Stela peaked in 2021, when 14 girls were given it, #7,982 among girls’ names. The 8 births of 2025 are 57% of that peak.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 8 | #11,804 | 5.0 |
| 2024 | 13 | #8,369 | 8.0 |
| 2023 | 6 | #14,960 | 3.7 |
| 2022 | 9 | #11,135 | 5.5 |
| 2021 | 14 | #7,982 | 8.5 |
| 2020 | 9 | #10,977 | 5.6 |
| 2019 | 7 | #13,629 | 4.2 |
| 2018 | 10 | #10,467 | 5.9 |
| 2017 | 8 | #12,599 | 4.6 |
| 2016 | 11 | #10,028 | 6.2 |
Every recorded year (24)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 10 | #10,767 | 5.6 |
| 2014 | 7 | #14,381 | 3.9 |
| 2013 | 12 | #9,536 | 6.8 |
| 2012 | 10 | #11,161 | 5.7 |
| 2011 | 11 | #10,304 | 6.3 |
| 2010 | 8 | #13,314 | 4.5 |
| 2009 | 7 | #15,039 | 3.8 |
| 2008 | 5 | #20,095 | 2.6 |
| 2007 | 7 | #15,279 | 3.6 |
| 2006 | 8 | #13,466 | 4.2 |
| 2004 | 8 | #12,607 | 4.4 |
| 2003 | 6 | #15,526 | 3.3 |
| 2001 | 5 | #17,607 | 2.8 |
| 2000 | 5 | #17,276 | 2.8 |
Ranks and shares: girls’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all girls SSA recorded that year.
Is Stela a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Stela has been recorded only for girls: SSA lists no boys with the name in 24 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Stela: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Stela, and how old are they?
An estimated 202 Americans named Stela and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (99% of everyone recorded); the median is 11 years old and half are between 6 and 16. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 898 people named Stela (897 women and girls, 1 man or boy). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 146 born in the U.S. The Census count is 6.2 times that prediction. Possible reasons: the Census counts people born abroad, whom SSA’s files leave out, and it records the name people give, which SSA may have recorded under another spelling or as part of a compound name.
Living estimate: SSA births carried forward with the survival rates in SSA’s cohort life tables (2024 Trustees Report) for each birth year and sex. How the estimate is made. Count: Census Bureau, first names in the 2020 Census (released April 14, 2026; names reported 100 or more times, with the Bureau’s disclosure-avoidance adjustment).
Names spelled alike
Of these 4 names spelled alike, given to 207,878 babies since 1880, Stela is the third most given (<1% of them). In 2025 it was given to 8 of their 4,178 babies (<1%), again the third most given.
Spelled alike: names in the SSA national file with the same pattern of letters and sounds and at most two letters apart, and Wiktionary’s listed forms; births since 1880 and in 2025, and each name’s peak year, from the SSA national file, published May 8, 2026. Some are separate names, not spellings of one.
Names that rose and fell in the same decades as Stela
Names whose births rose and fell across the same decades, measured on each decade’s share of births.
Similar histories: each decade’s share of births, from the SSA national file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
More about Stela and names like it
- Compare Stela and StellaBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 2020sStela peaked in 2021.
- Latin namesWiktionary’s origin for Stela: every such name, by how often it is given.
- The top names of 2021The year the most babies were named Stela.
- The names of Generation AlphaMost people named Stela alive today were born 2013-2025.
- Names starting with SMost given first.