Adella
A feminine name of French and Latin origins meaning "noble" or "nobility".
Name Census estimates that about 2,432 living Americans carry the first name Adella. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Adella today is around 35 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Adella births was 1920 (143 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Adella. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Adella with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
2.4K
~ 1 in 140,935 Americans
Peak year
1920
143 babies that year
Average age
35
years old
2024 SSA rank
#2,791
Tracked since 1880
Census
Adella in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 2,483 people with the first name Adella, which placed it at #6,458 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#6,458
National first-name rank
People counted
2.5K
2,483 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.8
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
51.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Adella
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Adella is White at 51.3%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (26.3%) and Black (14.5%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Adella described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Adella at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White51.3% · 1,273
- Hispanic or Latino26.3% · 654
- Black or African American14.5% · 359
- Two or more races3.5% · 86
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.0% · 75
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.4% · 36
Popularity
Adella: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Adella from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 1,014 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 1920s peak, Adella remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Adella by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Adella during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Adellas live
The SSA's state-level files cover 26 states and territories. Pennsylvania, California, Texas recorded the most babies named Adella, while Washington, Mississippi, Florida recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 63 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Adella
The name Adella originated from the Germanic languages, with its roots tracing back to the 5th century AD. It is a feminine form derived from the Germanic root "Adal," meaning "noble" or "aristocratic." The name was particularly popular among the Frankish and Anglo-Saxon nobility during the Middle Ages.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Adella can be found in the 7th century Ecclesiastical History of the English People by the Venerable Bede, where he mentions an Anglo-Saxon princess named Adella who lived in the kingdom of Northumbria.
Adella was also the name of a Frankish princess who lived in the 8th century AD. She was the daughter of King Childeric III and became a nun at the convent of Chelles near Paris.
In the 11th century, Adella was the name of a noblewoman from the Kingdom of León in modern-day Spain. She was the wife of Count Pedro Ansúrez and played a significant role in the political affairs of the region.
During the Renaissance period, Adella was the name of an Italian poet and scholar who lived in the 15th century. Born in Florence, she was known for her contributions to the literary circles of the time and her patronage of the arts.
Another notable figure with the name Adella was an American abolitionist and women's rights activist born in 1820. Adella Hunt Logan was a prominent figure in the anti-slavery movement and worked alongside notable abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison.
Throughout history, the name Adella has been associated with nobility, literary accomplishments, and social activism, reflecting its origins as a name borne by those of aristocratic lineage and intellectual pursuits.
People
Adella + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Adella as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with A
Other first names starting with A with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Adella: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Adella?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 2,432 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Adella going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 140,935 US residents.
Is Adella a common name?
We classify Adella as "Rare". It ranks above 94.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 5,929 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Adella most popular?
The single biggest year for Adella was 1920, when 143 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Adella is about 35 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Adella in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 2,483 people with the name Adella, or 0.82 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #6,458 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Adella in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Adella?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Adella appears almost entirely female. Of the 2,481 people counted with this name, 99.8% were female and only a very small share were male. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Adella?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Adella is White at 51.3%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (26.3%) and Black (14.5%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Adella most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Adella in the 2020 Census, accounting for 51.3% (1,273 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Adella in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Adella a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Adella in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Adella still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Adella in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Adella can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How common is the name Adella?
See how many people have the name Adella on HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site built around that single question.