About Della
Della is an English familiar form of Adela or Adelaide, carrying the Germanic element meaning noble. Its two syllables have become a complete given name in their own right. A singer and television actor, Della Reese, and O. Henry's Christmas-story heroine give it two particularly warm cultural connections.
From a longer name to Della
Adela developed from names containing the Germanic element adal, noble. Della keeps the central sound of Adela and gives the longer name a short, first-syllable-stressed form. Adelaide belongs to the same broader name family and can also supply Della as a familiar form.
Adella and Adele are close relatives in that family. Delia can also occur among its familiar forms, although the resemblance between Della and other Del- names does not make every such name historically identical.
English Della is DEL-uh, with a short first vowel and a light final a. The full name is already brief, with the same two-syllable length as many everyday nicknames.
Della Reese in music and television
Della Reese was born Delloreese Patricia Early in Detroit in 1931. Her career crossed gospel, jazz, pop, nightclubs, and television. Her 1959 recording Don't You Know? became a hit, establishing a musical association before her later television roles.
She hosted the talk show Della in the late 1960s, and her screen work eventually included Touched by an Angel, which ran from 1994 to 2003. As Tess, she brought the name to viewers through a long-running religious fantasy drama.
Reese received Emmy nominations for supporting actress in a drama series in 1997 and 1998 for that role. The nominations recognize the television performance; her wider career also included film, singing, and hosting. She died in 2017 after a career spanning six decades.
Della in The Gift of the Magi
O. Henry's The Gift of the Magi centers on Della and her husband Jim as they try to buy Christmas presents with very little money. Della sells her long hair to purchase a chain for Jim's treasured watch.
Jim, meanwhile, sells the watch to buy decorative combs for Della's hair. Each gift becomes temporarily unusable because the other person has given up the possession it was intended to complement.
The story's emotional force comes from that crossed sacrifice. Della is remembered through an act undertaken for someone she loves, giving the name a literary association with the ordinary household details of money, hair, a watch, and a carefully chosen gift.
American use
Della ranked #60 for United States girls in 1881. Its largest annual count came in 1917, with 1,192 girls. Use later declined to 45 girls in 2000.
The name has since returned to wider use: 533 girls received it in 2025, when it ranked #563. Its recent recovery follows an American record extending back to the nineteenth century.
Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution
Meaning and history draw on the references below. American figures use the local Social Security Administration series for this exact spelling and sex; counts below five are omitted. Existing Wiktionary content is available under CC BY-SA. Nickname suggestions are identified in the text.
- Wiktionary: Della (English)
- Wiktionary: Adela
- Social Security Administration: national name data
- Wikidata: Della Reese
- Wikidata: Della Sowah
- Wikidata: Della H. Raney
- Wikidata: Lara Della Mea
- Wikidata: Della Jones
- Wikidata: Della Destiara Haris
- Television Academy: Della Reese
- O. Henry: The Gift of the Magi
Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
How popular is Della?
In 2025, Della ranked #563 among girls in the United States, with 533 recorded uses. The U.S. birth records first list this spelling for girls in 1880; its largest annual count was 1,192 in 1917. Rankings count each spelling separately. They describe national use, so local familiarity can differ. The popularity chart shows whether the name has remained common, returned after a quieter period, or risen recently.