# Belle (first name)

Source: https://namelineage.com/first-name/belle/  
Publisher: Name Lineage. US counts from the Social Security Administration; England and Wales counts from the Office for National Statistics; meaning and etymology from Wiktionary. Data updated 2026-11-11.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Usually given to | girls |
| Origin | French |
| Meaning | “beauty”, “beautiful” |
| Pronunciation | /bɛl/, 1 syllable |
| Nicknames | none recorded |
| Variant spellings | Bell, Bel |
| US babies named this | 19,227 since 1880 |
| Boys / girls in the US | 0 / 19,227 (100% girls) |
| Babies in England and Wales | 2,957, 1996 to 2025 |

## Etymology

From French belle (“beauty, beautiful”), from Latin bella.

## What it means

Belle is grouped under beauty.

## Popularity

The last 15 years of each series. A year is missing when too few babies were given the name for the agency to publish it: five in the US, three in England and Wales.

### United States, girls

| Year | Babies | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 144 | 1,527 |
| 2012 | 163 | 1,408 |
| 2013 | 190 | 1,255 |
| 2014 | 251 | 1,033 |
| 2015 | 251 | 1,050 |
| 2016 | 293 | 936 |
| 2017 | 339 | 806 |
| 2018 | 312 | 870 |
| 2019 | 307 | 874 |
| 2020 | 255 | 1,000 |
| 2021 | 241 | 1,046 |
| 2022 | 274 | 971 |
| 2023 | 250 | 1,012 |
| 2024 | 255 | 1,005 |
| 2025 | 247 | 1,013 |

### England and Wales, girls

| Year | Babies | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 181 | 270 |
| 2012 | 192 | 255 |
| 2013 | 146 | 321 |
| 2014 | 193 | 254 |
| 2015 | 186 | 268 |
| 2016 | 194 | 261 |
| 2017 | 209 | 240 |
| 2018 | 218 | 229 |
| 2019 | 181 | 266 |
| 2020 | 186 | 252 |
| 2021 | 147 | 324 |
| 2022 | 124 | 345 |
| 2023 | 126 | 340 |
| 2024 | 139 | 311 |
| 2025 | 105 | 396 |

## In other languages

- Japanese: ベォレ

## People named Belle

- Isabelle de Charrière, Dutch French-language writer and composer (1740-1805)
- Belle Delphine, English Internet celebrity, pornographic actress, and model (born 1999)
- Belle Starr, American outlaw
- Belle Boyd, American Confederate spy (1844–1900)
- Belle Knox, American pornographic actress
- Belle Bennett, American film actress (1891–1932)
- Belle Mitchell, actress (1889-1979)
- Belle da Costa Greene, American librarian (1883-1950)
- Belle Brockhoff, Australian snowboarder
- Belle Adair, American actress and singer
- Belle Gibson, Australian blogger, app publisher and alternative health advocate who falsely claimed dona
- Gertrude B. Elion, American biochemist and pharmacologist (1918–1999)

## How to read these numbers

A count is babies registered with that name in that year, not people alive now, so a name common a century ago can have a large total and few recent births.