Makela
Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Makela has been given to 292 babies in the U.S. since 1970. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1996, with 19 recorded.
Babies named Makela, 2017
1 in 596,000
Makela 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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.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 Makela?
Makela had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2017, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 2017
- 1 in 596,000
- 6 of 3,577,106 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 288,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 2017
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 413,245 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Makela sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 2017 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 413,245 children born in 2017 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Makela. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Makelas were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Makela was born before 1999 — so the typical Makela is around 26 today.
- Biggest decade
- 2000s
- 41.4% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 81.2%
- A modern name
- Recorded since 1950
- 292
- People you could plausibly meet
2000s — 41.4% of all recorded uses (121).
Is Makela 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
- 0%
- Peak was 1996 (19)
- Years since peak
- 29
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 34.1% average annual change
Spellings of Makela
Makela is not the most common spelling — Pamela is, with 54.8% against Makela's 0.03%.
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.
Makela around the world
Where Makela 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.
- Canada2001–2001#2,611in 2001
Popularity data from Statistics Canada. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence.
Makela by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Makela
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Makela
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.