Isabella
- Pronunciation
- [I-sa-be-lla]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Not recorded
- Origin
- Arthurian
Isabella is a name traditionally given to a girl of Arthurian origin. Our sources do not preserve a single agreed-upon literal translation for this particular name, so we list its meaning as unrecorded rather than guess at one. Browse more Arthurian baby names or search the full library by meaning.
About the Name Isabella
Isabella is the medieval Italian and Spanish form of Elizabeth, which descends through Greek Elisabet from the Hebrew Elisheva meaning "my God is an oath" or "God is abundance." The transformation from Elisheva to Isabella is gradual: medieval Iberian and Italian speakers contracted Elisabel into Isabel, then elaborated it back to the Latinate Isabella. By the high Middle Ages the two names — Elizabeth and Isabella — were considered separate, each with its own patron-saints, queens, and naming traditions.
The name's medieval prestige is anchored by Isabella I of Castile (1451–1504), who united Spain through her marriage to Ferdinand of Aragon, financed the voyages of Christopher Columbus, and oversaw the completion of the Reconquista. Earlier, Isabella of France (the "She-Wolf," wife of Edward II of England) and Isabella of Bavaria (queen of France) made the name standard among European royal houses for several centuries.
Modern American Isabella surged in the 2000s, peaking at US #1 girls' rank in 2009 and 2010 — partly riding the Twilight novel-and-film phenomenon (the heroine's full name is Isabella "Bella" Swan), partly the broader return to ornate, multi-syllable, Latinate girls' names. The name's appeal is its built-in elegance: four syllables, soft consonants, royal pedigree, room for the more casual nickname Bella. Other nicknames include Izzy, Ella, Belle. Variants include Isabel (Spanish/Portuguese), Isabelle (French), Ysabel (archaic Spanish), and the truncated Isa.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Isabella
US Popularity History (1998–2025)
Annual US births named Isabella by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2010 with 22,935 girls named Isabella (girl rank #1 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #7 for girls (10,666 US births). That's 6 places below its 2010 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Isabella Most Popular?
Average girl-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Isabella the strongest states are Florida, Nevada, Texas.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Florida | #2 | 10,088 |
| 2 | Nevada | #3 | 1,227 |
| 3 | Texas | #4 | 15,128 |
| 4 | New Mexico | #4 | 680 |
| 5 | Arizona | #4 | 2,998 |
| 6 | Delaware | #5 | 365 |
| 7 | New Jersey | #5 | 3,798 |
| 8 | Massachusetts | #5 | 2,500 |
| 9 | Rhode Island | #5 | 426 |
| 10 | Georgia | #5 | 3,346 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | North Dakota | #31 | 190 |
| 2 | South Dakota | #29 | 184 |
| 3 | Montana | #27 | 188 |
| 4 | Vermont | #27 | 121 |
| 5 | Utah | #25 | 880 |
| 6 | Wyoming | #24 | 114 |
| 7 | Maine | #24 | 265 |
| 8 | Alaska | #20 | 202 |
| 9 | Mississippi | #19 | 620 |
| 10 | Minnesota | #19 | 1,186 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Isabella in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Izabella | Devoted To God | Female | Hebrew |
Looking for names like Isabella?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Isabella to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Isabella against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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