Entry № 1332 · Italian origin

Bella Bella — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ BELL-ah /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Italian
Meaning
"Beautiful"
Syllables
2
First recorded
Medieval

A name that means "beautiful".

Bella is the Italian word for "beautiful" — both a common adjective and a name in its own right.

Bella is also used as a short form of Isabella, Annabella, and other longer names. Its current popularity surge owes much to the heroine of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight novels, but the name has Italian and Latin roots going back centuries. Today it sits comfortably in the U.S. top 60.

Beautiful — a Italian name.

The name in its native script.

Bella
Transliteration
Bella
Pronunciation
/ ˈbɛl.ə /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Bella stands.

Bella does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.

Bellas before her.

Real people
Bella Hadid
American model. One of the most-booked models of her generation.
born 1996
Bella Thorne
American actress and singer.
born 1997
In fiction
Bella Swan
Heroine of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series.
2005–2008 novels

Names connected to Bella.

The number behind Bella.

5

The Seeker

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Bella reduce to 5, The Seeker. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.