Belva
#15,300 in 2025Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Belva has been given to 7,960 babies in the U.S. since 1881. In 2025 it ranked #15,300 of 17,293 girls’ names in use. Its peak year was 1927, with 184 recorded.
Babies named Belva, 2025
1 in 663,000
Belva over time, 1880–2025
Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Belva?
Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.
- Among all babies, 2025
- 1 in 663,000
- 5 of 3,315,165 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 321,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 2025
- #15,300
- of 17,293 girls’ names in use
- Coin-flip room size
- 459,581 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Belva sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 2025 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 459,581 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Belva. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Belvas were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Belva was born before 1929 — so the typical Belva is around 96 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1920s
- 20.7% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 0.19%
- Mostly a past generation
- Recorded since 1950
- 1,241
- People you could plausibly meet
1920s — 20.7% of all recorded uses (1,650).
Is Belva rising or falling?
Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.
- Rank vs 1 year ago
- —
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 5 years ago
- New entry
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not ranked then
- Births vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not published both years
- Share of its own peak
- 2.7%
- Peak was 1927 (184)
- Years since peak
- 98
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Shifting
- 16.9% average annual change
Spellings of Belva
Belva is not the most common spelling — Ella is, with 23.6% against Belva's 0.54%.
Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.
Where Belva is used
Across 1910–2025, Belva was most concentrated in West Virginia — about 1 in 3,846 girls, against 1 in 33,511 across all states with data. It was least common in Mississippi (1 in —).
Most concentrated
- 1West Virginia1 in 3,846
- 2South Dakota1 in 5,556
- 3Oklahoma1 in 10,000
- 4Kentucky1 in 11,111
- 5Nebraska1 in 11,111
- 6Iowa1 in 12,500
- 7Idaho1 in 12,500
- 8Utah1 in 12,500
Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Belva has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Belva around the world
Where Belva ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.
- South Australia2012–2012#871in 2012
Popularity data from Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.
Belva by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Belva
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Names with a curve like Belva
Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Belva, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.
Sibling names for Belva
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.