Latin stella, "star" — star. Coined by Philip Sidney for his 1590s sonnet sequence Astrophel and Stella.
Stella ranks 52nd among American girls in 2025, with 4,136 born that year. Its best year was 2018, when 5,164 babies were given the name, ranking 38th. The typical living American called Stella is about 13 years old today. It is relatively most common in Rhode Island, where it accounts for 0.27% of births.
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state name files, 2025 release, and the Office for National Statistics for England and Wales. Etymology researched and written by our editors. Living-population and median-age figures are our own estimates, described in the methodology.