Vela

24,228 people in the United States were counted with the surname Vela in the 2020 census, making it the 1,431st most common in the country. That is about one person in 12,300.

By the numbers

People: 24,228
Rank: 1,431st
How common: 1 in 12,300
Per 100,000: 8.1

Who bears the name

How people with the surname Vela described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:

Hispanic or Latino 90.5%
White, not Hispanic 7.8%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.7%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 0.4%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.3%
Black, not Hispanic 0.3%

Notable people called Vela

Carlos Vela (born 1989)Mexican footballer
Raúl Eduardo Vela Chiriboga (1934–2020)Ecuadorian archbishop and cardinal
Vincenzo Vela (1820–1891)Swiss sculptor
Blasco Núñez Vela (1490–1546)First viceroy of Peru
Filemon Vela (born 1963)American politician

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

Surnames like Vela

Also a first name

Vela has been given to 1,082 American babies as a first name since 1888, peaking in 1915. See it as a given name.

Try it on yourself

Source: US Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames, 2020. The Census describes the file as the surnames borne by 100 or more people; rarer names are not published. The line is not quite exact, and 617 published names come in under it, the smallest at 92 people. Race and Hispanic origin are self-reported. Rates are worked out against the 298.9 million people the file's own figures are calculated on, which is fewer than the census counted in all: the difference is everyone whose surname was too rare to publish.