Vela is a rare spelling. It is summarised with Viola, which shares its sound and spelling pattern.
Meaning not yet researched.
Vela: US girls given the name each year, 1880 to 2025, from Social Security card applications. 17 in 2025. Its best rank was #964 in 1905.
US births per year · SSA card applications
Peaked at #964 in 1905; #6,813 in 2025. Every baby recorded as Vela in 2025 was a girl.
Baby name · US data 1880–2025
#6,813 for US girls in 2025. Its best year was 1905, at #964.
Hover, tap or use the arrow keys for any year. Years with fewer than five babies of a sex are not published by SSA and show as zero.
Vela: US girls given the name each year from 1880 to 2025. 17 girls in 2025. Peak: #964 in 1905 · most girls in one year: 38 (1915).
In 2025, 17 US girls were named Vela, making it the 6,813th most common girls’ name of the year, down 868 places from #5,945 in 2024. That is 4 fewer than the 21 girls named Vela in 2024. Its best rank for girls was #964, reached in 1905. The most girls given the name in a single year was 38, in 1915. For comparison, it was #6,020 in 2015 and #4,715 in 1950.
Social Security card records list Vela in 87 years of the 146 from 1880 to 2025, starting in 1888 with 6 babies. In all, 1,082 US babies have been given the name, all of them girls. Its busiest decade was the 1910s, with 205 babies named Vela.
Over the 10 years from 2016 to 2025, 197 US girls were named Vela; the busiest of those years was 2021, with 27. In 2025 that was about 1 in 94,545 of the girls in SSA’s list for the year.
Related spellings in the SSA files include Viola (133,427 babies since 1880) and Veola (1,843 babies since 1880).
Meaning not yet researched.
We publish a meaning only with a cited source and a confidence label, and never generate one. Meanings are being researched for the most common names first.
Wikidata records this spelling as a given name in Serbian. That is where the name is used, not necessarily where it comes from.
Numbers are all-time US births. Links come from Wikidata’s “said to be the same as” (P460, CC0) and our spelling rule: at most two letters different, with the same sound pattern.
No nicknames listed for Vela in the open dataset we use.
Source: carltonnorthern/nicknames (Apache-2.0).
Births and national rank for each year SSA lists the name, newest first.
| Year | Girls | Girls rank | Boys | Boys rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 17 | #6,813 | — | — |
| 2024 | 21 | #5,945 | — | — |
| 2023 | 26 | #5,117 | — | — |
| 2022 | 17 | #6,963 | — | — |
| 2021 | 27 | #4,947 | — | — |
| 2020 | 11 | #9,506 | — | — |
| 2019 | 18 | #6,684 | — | — |
| 2018 | 20 | #6,226 | — | — |
| 2017 | 16 | #7,426 | — | — |
| 2016 | 24 | #5,605 | — | — |
| 2015 | 22 | #6,020 | — | — |
| 2014 | 16 | #7,615 | — | — |
| 2013 | 12 | #9,581 | — | — |
| 2012 | 10 | #11,203 | — | — |
| 2011 | 12 | #9,690 | — | — |
| 2010 | 15 | #8,256 | — | — |
| 2009 | 5 | #20,046 | — | — |
| 2007 | 7 | #15,388 | — | — |
| 1998 | 5 | #16,496 | — | — |
| 1970 | 5 | #9,307 | — | — |
| 1967 | 5 | #7,809 | — | — |
| 1964 | 8 | #5,451 | — | — |
| 1963 | 6 | #6,561 | — | — |
| 1961 | 7 | #5,815 | — | — |
| 1960 | 6 | #6,350 | — | — |
| 1959 | 6 | #6,207 | — | — |
| 1957 | 6 | #6,052 | — | — |
| 1954 | 12 | #3,482 | — | — |
| 1951 | 9 | #3,993 | — | — |
| 1950 | 7 | #4,715 | — | — |
| 1949 | 6 | #5,219 | — | — |
| 1947 | 9 | #3,994 | — | — |
| 1946 | 6 | #4,923 | — | — |
| 1945 | 6 | #4,523 | — | — |
| 1943 | 6 | #4,660 | — | — |
| 1942 | 8 | #3,718 | — | — |
| 1941 | 6 | #4,385 | — | — |
| 1940 | 6 | #4,315 | — | — |
| 1939 | 9 | #3,127 | — | — |
| 1938 | 7 | #3,823 | — | — |
| 1937 | 7 | #3,777 | — | — |
| 1936 | 10 | #2,843 | — | — |
| 1935 | 8 | #3,407 | — | — |
| 1934 | 14 | #2,282 | — | — |
| 1933 | 12 | #2,533 | — | — |
| 1932 | 8 | #3,549 | — | — |
| 1931 | 14 | #2,300 | — | — |
| 1930 | 15 | #2,295 | — | — |
| 1929 | 9 | #3,377 | — | — |
| 1928 | 18 | #2,087 | — | — |
| 1927 | 19 | #2,090 | — | — |
| 1926 | 15 | #2,463 | — | — |
| 1925 | 18 | #2,187 | — | — |
| 1924 | 21 | #1,988 | — | — |
| 1923 | 25 | #1,729 | — | — |
| 1922 | 18 | #2,180 | — | — |
| 1921 | 15 | #2,498 | — | — |
| 1920 | 22 | #1,883 | — | — |
| 1919 | 27 | #1,560 | — | — |
| 1918 | 21 | #1,878 | — | — |
| 1917 | 17 | #2,093 | — | — |
| 1916 | 20 | #1,797 | — | — |
| 1915 | 38 | #1,113 | — | — |
| 1914 | 25 | #1,258 | — | — |
| 1913 | 16 | #1,524 | — | — |
| 1912 | 15 | #1,470 | — | — |
| 1911 | 13 | #1,367 | — | — |
| 1910 | 13 | #1,332 | — | — |
| 1909 | 14 | #1,146 | — | — |
| 1908 | 13 | #1,197 | — | — |
| 1907 | 12 | #1,203 | — | — |
| 1906 | 7 | #1,709 | — | — |
| 1905 | 16 | #964 | — | — |
| 1904 | 11 | #1,166 | — | — |
| 1903 | 8 | #1,430 | — | — |
| 1902 | 8 | #1,427 | — | — |
| 1901 | 8 | #1,329 | — | — |
| 1900 | 11 | #1,221 | — | — |
| 1899 | 5 | #1,826 | — | — |
| 1898 | 10 | #1,165 | — | — |
| 1897 | 8 | #1,250 | — | — |
| 1896 | 5 | #1,809 | — | — |
| 1895 | 5 | #1,796 | — | — |
| 1894 | 5 | #1,696 | — | — |
| 1893 | 5 | #1,641 | — | — |
| 1890 | 5 | #1,518 | — | — |
| 1888 | 6 | #1,264 | — | — |
About the data: counts are Social Security card applications for US births, for names given to at least five babies of a sex in a year (SSA, names.zip, public domain). Ranks follow SSA’s own order: most births first, ties alphabetical. Files retrieved 2026-10-05 (checksum on our sources page).