What does Stella mean?
Stella means “star” in Latin. Its direct celestial meaning and two-syllable sound have helped make it familiar in several European languages. There is also a separate Greek naming route: Stella can be a short form of Styliani, whose family comes from stylos, “pillar.”
The Greek familiar form adopted a spelling influenced by the Latin-based Stella. These two histories meet in the same modern name, while the familiar star meaning belongs to the Latin word. Estelle is a closely related form in the star-name family; Styliani and Stylianos belong to the Greek branch.
Stella in poetry and drama
Philip Sidney used Stella as the beloved's name in his sixteenth-century sonnet sequence Astrophil and Stella, published in 1591. The title joins a star-loving speaker with the woman named “star,” making the name's meaning part of the work's design. The sequence is an important example of the English Renaissance love-sonnet tradition.
Stella later became the familiar name Jonathan Swift used for Esther Johnson. It was not widely used as a given name until the nineteenth century, despite those earlier literary appearances.
Another well-known fictional bearer is Stella Kowalski in Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire, first produced in 1947. She is Blanche DuBois's sister and Stanley Kowalski's wife. Her position between those two central characters makes her part of the relationships driving the drama. This stage connection places Stella in twentieth-century theater as well as Renaissance poetry.
Stella McCartney and fashion
Designer Stella McCartney gives the name a contemporary creative association. She graduated from Central Saint Martins in 1995 and launched her own fashion house in 2001, showing its first collection in Paris that October.
Her work combines tailoring with an emphasis on materials. From the beginning, her label excluded leather, fur, skins, and feathers, making the search for alternatives part of its design approach. That commitment became a distinctive feature of a luxury fashion business carrying her full name.
The connection is especially visible because Stella McCartney appears as a label on clothing and accessories as well as the designer's personal name. It adds a modern design history to the older poetic image of a star.
Pronunciation and related names
In English, Stella is pronounced STEL-uh, with two syllables and stress on the first. Italian gives the final a a clearer ah sound and holds the double l more distinctly. Estelle is a related star-name form with a different ending and English stress pattern. Greek Styliani is a longer parent name for Stella in that separate tradition.
Stella in American name records
Stella's American girls' peak came in 2018, with 5,164 babies and a rank of No. 38. In 2025, 4,136 girls received the name, placing it at No. 52. Its substantial recent use gives this old Latin word a strong place among contemporary American names.
Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution
Meaning and history draw on the references below. American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling; counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.
How popular is Stella?
In 2025, Stella ranked #52 among girls in the United States, with 4,136 recorded uses. The U.S. birth records first list this spelling for girls in 1880; its largest annual count was 5,164 in 2018. 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.