Humanverse

Gala

Gala reached its high-water mark in 1965 at number 1,055, and has been recorded 2,186 times in all. In 2025 it ranked 2,485th. About 1,900 Galas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 28.

Popularity, 1880–2025

Births per year, 1880 to 2025 0 25 50 75 100 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

girls named Gala

By the numbers

Total US births
2,186
Estimated living today
1,900
Median age today
28
Peak year
1965
Best rank
1,055th
Rank in 2025
2,485th
First recorded
1919

How old the living Galas are

Born with the name each year, and how many of them are alive today, 1880 to 2025 0 25 50 75 100 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

born that year still alive today

Of the 2,186 babies given the name since 1919, about 1,900 are alive — 89 in every hundred. Roughly 860 of them are children and 320 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1997 and half after.

An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.

Notable Galas

People named Gala with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Where Gala is most common

Relative to how many babies each state records, Gala is most concentrated in Texas (5.7×), Florida (3.1×), California (3.1×).

Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.

Names of 1965

The most popular girls’ names the year Gala peaked:

All the names of 1965

Gala elsewhere

CountrySpelling BirthsBest rank
Spain girls Gala 7,333 16th
France girls Gala 275 1,820th
England and Wales girls Gala 100 2,346th
Switzerland girls Gala 20 1,238th
Poland girls Gala 5 birth registrations 507th
Scotland girls Gala 3 749th

Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.

Gala: births by region

RegionCountry Spelling BirthsShare of the region Best rank
German girls Switzerland Gala 12 0.001% 1,126th
French girls Switzerland Gala 8 0.002% 615th

Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.

Gala: rank by region

In 2024, Gala was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Spain.

Region Spelling Place Children
Cataluña Gala 6 311

Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Spain after 10 names – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.

Gala by city

CityYears BirthsBest rank
Berlin girls 2017–2023 2 555th

One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.

Gala among the living

How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.

Country Spelling First forename Any forename
Finland girls Gala 6 9

A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.

Where Gala lives in Spain

Not a count of births but of people: 10,157 women called Gala were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.

Women: the provinces where it is densest

Province Spelling People Per thousand Place there
Barcelona Gala 2,628 0.864 183
Girona Gala 318 0.768 194
Zamora Gala 57 0.682 237
Lleida Gala 138 0.619 227
Castellón/Castelló Gala 186 0.589 236
Cáceres Gala 110 0.561 281

Listed in 52 of Spain's 52 provinces. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.

Related names

Gala against another name

Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.

Compare Gala with a name of your own

Try it on yourself

Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.