Tella
Tella was last recorded in 1989, when 11 babies were given it; 54 Americans have been recorded with it between 1880 and 1989 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Tella by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
What does Tella mean?
Wiktionary, English section
Tella is “a female given name.”
Meaning: Wiktionary, English section, as of Sep 25, 2026 (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
How popular is Tella?
Unranked in 2025
Its last girls’ rank on record is #7,403, in 1989; SSA lists a name only in years with 5 or more births.
11 babies in 1989, the peak
Tella peaked in 1989, when 11 girls were given it, #7,403 among girls’ names. It was not recorded in 2025.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1989 | 11 | #7,403 | 6.0 |
| 1988 | 5 | #13,705 | 2.8 |
| 1948 | 5 | #5,959 | 2.9 |
| 1925 | 7 | #4,385 | 5.8 |
| 1922 | 6 | #4,945 | 5.0 |
| 1920 | 5 | #5,670 | 4.2 |
| 1916 | 5 | #5,076 | 4.8 |
| 1886 | 5 | #1,263 | 34.6 |
| 1880 | 5 | #930 | 54.9 |
Ranks and shares: girls’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all girls SSA recorded that year.
Is Tella a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Tella has been recorded only for girls: SSA lists no boys with the name in 9 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Tella: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Tella, and how old are they?
An estimated 19 Americans named Tella and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026, too few to state an age range. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 132 people named Tella (127 women and girls, 5 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 21 born in the U.S. The Census count is 6.3 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).
How common is the spelling Tella?
Tella is a less common spelling of Tela: SSA has recorded 54 Tella and 700 Tela since 1880.
Of these 8 names spelled alike, given to 4,683 babies since 1880, Tella is the eighth most given (1.2% of them). In 2025 none of their 78 babies recorded by SSA was a Tella (SSA lists a name only with 5 or more babies of one sex).
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.
More about Tella and names like it
- Compare Tella and TelaBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 1980sTella peaked in 1989.
- The top names of 1989The year the most babies were named Tella.
- Names starting with TMost given first.