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Bellah vs Belle

American parents have registered 19,227 Belles since 1880, against 502 Bellahs. Belle is still ahead, with 247 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Bellah against Belle, 1880 to 2025 0 125 250 375 500 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Bellah Belle

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Belle has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2012, when Bellah had 42 and Belle had 163.

Side by side

  Bellah Belle
Total US births 50219,227
Most in one year 42407
Babies in 2025 7247
Estimated living today 5006,800
Median age today 1212
Peak year 20121915
Best rank 3,711th girls288th girls
Rank in 2025 11,932nd1,013th
First recorded 20031880
Girls / boys 502 / 019,227 / 0

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Bellah and Belle.