Bella
Meaning of Bella
Bella is a short form of Isabella and other names ending in -bella, and it is also the Italian word for beautiful. Today it is often chosen as a full name in its own right. It is pronounced BEL-uh in English and BEHL-lah in Italian.
The best-known fictional Bella is Bella Swan, heroine of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. Real-life Bellas include Bella Abzug, the New York congresswoman who helped found the National Women's Political Caucus, and the model Bella Hadid.
In the United States, Bella was little used for most of the 20th century and ranked only 1,085th in 1999. It then rose quickly to a peak of 48th in 2010, a rank it matched in 2018. Since then it has slipped every year, to 136th in 2025 with 2,129 babies.
Pronunciation
Italian
- Pronunced as BEHL-lah (/ˈbɛl.la/)
English
- Pronunced as BEL-uh (/ˈbɛlə/)
U.S. Popularity Chart
States Popularity Chart
Notable People Named Bella
| Bella Hadid - Isabella Khair Hadid is an American model who has appeared on 35 international Vogue covers, was named 2022 British Fashion Council Model of the Year, and made the Time 100 in 2023. |
| Bella Thorne - Annabella Avery Thorne is an American actress, singer, and writer known for Dirty Sexy Money and My Own Worst Enemy, earning a Young Artist Award for the latter. |
| Bella Abzug was an American lawyer, politician, and activist who helped found the National Womens Political Caucus in 1971 and became a leading voice in ecofeminism. |
| Bella Ramsey - Isabella May Ramsey is an English actor best known for playing Lyanna Mormont in Game of Thrones and Ellie in The Last of Us, earning them BAFTA, Golden Globe, and two Emmy nominations. |
| American singer and social media star Bella Poarch rose to fame with the most liked TikTok of 2020 and is among the most followed on the platform, the most followed from the Philippines. |
| Bella Heathcote - Isabella Heathcote is an Australian actress who gained recognition on Neighbours and for roles in Dark Shadows and Professor Marston and the Wonder Women. |
| Bella Burge was an American born British music hall performer and actress who later became the first female boxing promoter, running The Ring in Southwark and earning the nickname Bella of Blackfriars. |
| Bella Tabak Feldman was an American sculptor who pioneered glass with steel, explored themes of sexuality, war, and industrial anxiety, taught at California College of the Arts, and worked in Oakland and London. |
| Bella French Swisher was a 19th century American author, editor, and publisher who founded periodicals, worked with Midwestern newspapers, and published nonfiction, novels, and poetry before dying in 1893. |
| Soviet mathematician Bella Abramovna Subbotovskaya founded the Jewish Peoples University to help those barred by anti Jewish bias, and after KGB scrutiny she died when hit by a truck amid assassination speculation. |
| Bella Blue is an American burlesque dancer and producer who founded and leads the New Orleans School of Burlesque. |
| Hungarian actress Bella Nagy was the second wife of writer Mor Jokai. |
| Bella Alten was a Polish born operatic soprano trained in Berlin and Dresden who debuted in 1897, performed leading roles across Europe, and was recruited to the Metropolitan Opera after being heard at Covent Garden in the early 1900s. |
| Bella MacCallum - Bella Dytes MacIntosh MacCallum was a New Zealand and British botanist and mycologist, and the first woman in New Zealand to earn a Doctor of Science. |
| Bella Rosenfeld Chagall, a Jewish Russian writer from Vitebsk now in Belarus and the first wife of Marc Chagall, was the subject of many of his paintings from Bella au col blanc in 1917 to the posthumous Bouquet pres de la fenetre in 1959 to 1960. |
