Tongela
Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Tongela has been given to 79 babies in the U.S. since 1968. 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 1970, with 17 recorded.
Babies named Tongela, 1980
1 in 574,000
Tongela 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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.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 Tongela?
Tongela had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1980, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 1980
- 1 in 574,000
- 6 of 3,444,198 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 277,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 1980
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 397,891 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Tongela sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 1980 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 397,891 children born in 1980 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Tongela. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Tongelas were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Tongela was born before 1971 — so the typical Tongela is around 54 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1970s
- 75.9% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 100.0%
- A modern name
- Recorded since 1950
- 79
- People you could plausibly meet
1970s — 75.9% of all recorded uses (60).
Is Tongela 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 1970 (17)
- Years since peak
- 55
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 55.3% average annual change
Spellings of Tongela
Tongela is not the most common spelling — Angela is, with 99.4% against Tongela's 0.01%.
Tongela by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Tongela
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Tongela
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.