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Ursula

#4,746 in 2025Girls' name

Little bear

Ursula has been given to 14,811 babies in the U.S. since 1881. In 2025 it ranked #4,746 of 17,293 girls’ names in use. Its peak year was 1967, with 400 recorded.

Babies named Ursula, 2025

1 in 114,000

Ursula over time, 1880–2025

Girls
010020030040018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Ursula: meaning, origin, and history

Little bear

Latin and Spanish

What Ursula means

Ursula means “little bear”.

Dictionary etymologyReferences, data & attribution

From Latin Ursula, the name of a fourth century saint. Via Proto-Indo-European *h₂ŕ̥tḱos cognate with Arcady.

Excerpt from Wiktionary: Ursula (English) · CC BY-SA 4.0

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Origin, language, and formation

Ursula is used in English, Estonian, Finnish, German, Latin, Swedish and Tagalog. Its origins include Latin and Spanish.

Ursula comes through Latin Ursula.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Ursele.

Pronunciation and spelling

In English, Ursula is pronounced /ˈɝ.sə.lə/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 14,811 girls were recorded with the name Ursula between 1881 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 400 in 1967; its best national rank was #447 in 1901.

Over 5 years its rank fell, from #4,745 in 2020 to #4,746 in 2025. Over 10 years its rank fell, from #3,755 in 2015 to #4,746 in 2025.

How common is Ursula?

Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 114,000
29 of 3,315,165 births
Among girls only
1 in 55,400
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2025
#4,746
of 17,293 girls’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
79,239 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Ursula sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

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.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 79,239 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Ursula. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Ursulas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Ursula was born before 1965 — so the typical Ursula is around 60 today.

Median birth year
1965
About 60 years old
Biggest decade
1960s
19.0% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
5.3%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
9,458
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1960s — 19.0% of all recorded uses (2,810).

Is Ursula 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
+533
Places climbed
Rank vs 5 years ago
−1
Places dropped
Rank vs 10 years ago
−991
Places dropped
Births vs 10 years ago
0.71×
Fewer babies than then
Share of its own peak
7.2%
Peak was 1967 (400)
Years since peak
58
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
26.6% average annual change
Best rank ever
#447
1901

Spellings of Ursula

Ursula is the most-used spelling, taking 81.1% of the 18,260 babies given a near-identical spelling.

  • Ursula81.1%14,811
  • Trula11.2%2,045
  • Sula7.7%1,404

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 Ursula is used

Across 1910–2025, Ursula was most concentrated in Louisiana — about 1 in 4,762 girls, against 1 in 15,535 across all states with data. It was least common in Kansas (1 in —).

021 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Louisiana1 in 4,762
  2. 2New York1 in 7,692
  3. 3New Jersey1 in 11,111
  4. 4New Mexico1 in 11,111
  5. 5Pennsylvania1 in 11,111
  6. 6Illinois1 in 12,500
  7. 7Massachusetts1 in 12,500
  8. 8California1 in 14,286

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. Ursula has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Ursula around the world

Where Ursula 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.

  • England & Wales
    1996–2025
    #5,927
    in 2025
  • Scotland
    1975–2016
    #798
    in 2016
  • Northern Ireland
    1997–2015
    #358
    in 2015
  • Ireland
    1964–2012
    #907
    in 2012
  • France
    1903–2024
    #7,646
    in 2024
  • Canada
    1991–2024
    #3,457
    in 2024
  • South Australia
    1950–2013
    #536
    in 2013

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, National Records of Scotland, Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, Central Statistics Office, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS, NRS, NISRA data under Open Government Licence v3.0. CSO, CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence.

Notable people named Ursula

People whose public names include Ursula, backed by Wikidata given-name records and ordered by linked Wikimedia pages. The name may be a middle name.

People data from Wikidata (CC0). Fame is measured, not judged — the order reflects how widely each person is documented, not the U.S. birth records popularity this page is otherwise about.

Ursula in other languages

Cross-language forms and variants of Ursula. Linked forms have their own page here.

UllaUrsaUrsuleUrszulaÚllaUschiUrsolaOrsolya

Variant forms from Wikidata (CC0). Most are used mainly outside the United States; U.S. birth records statistics cover US usage only.

Ursula by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
#4,746
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
Down 1
Best rank ever
#447
1901
Peak year
1967
400 that year
First recorded
1881
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
14,811
Count in 2025
29

Names similar to Ursula

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

EulaZulaLulaTalulaTulaPaulaAzulaSulaLoulaTrulaPamulaUlaBeulaAnapaulaNebulaToulaUrszulaTallulaUrsalaBulaTamulaUrsaPetulaUrsela

Names with a curve like Ursula

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Ursula, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

LetitiaLucretiaMalindaLolitaAngelitaTressaPaulImeldaThomasDavidAntionetteGena

Sibling names for Ursula

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Ursula

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