Zella

Where Zella comes from

Zella 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. 1870
    Zella de Milhau born
    American artist, ambulance driver, community organizer and motorcycle policewoman
  2. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #278 among girls — 31 babies in the first year on record.
  3. 1888
    Peak, #219
    111 babies named Zella — more than any year before or since.
  4. 1954
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #1,444.
  5. 1995
    Zella Day born
    American singer-songwriter
In the dictionary

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

Namesakes
  • Zella Day · American singer-songwriter, born 1995
  • Zella de Milhau · American artist, ambulance driver, community organizer and motorcycle policewoman, 1870–1954

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.