Bella: What Twilight Did to a Name

Nov 6, 2026 Abigail Adams, Editorial writer

In 2003, Bella was a minor name: 940 babies, ranked #321. She had been rising gently on her own — 245 babies in 2000 — as part of the era's taste for soft, Italianate girls' names.

Then a book series about a girl named Bella became a phenomenon, the films followed, and her chart changed species:

2005: 1,648
2008: 2,775
2009: 4,526
2010: 5,101 babies, ranked #48

Five times her 2003 count in seven years. Bella had not become a classic; she had become a citation. Everyone who heard the name heard the reference with it.

Borrowed fame, repaid slowly

The interesting part of Bella's story is how long the repayment took. She did not crash when the films ended. Through the mid-2010s she held a high plateau — 4,308 babies in 2012, 4,106 in 2014 — and she even mounted a second wind late in the decade: 4,661 babies in 2017, back to #48 in 2018.

Only from 2020 did the long slide properly begin: 3,642 babies (#63) that year, then 2,902 in 2022, 2,550 in 2023, and 2,116 babies, ranked #136, in 2025. Measured by rank, she is one of the biggest fallers of the 2020s: #63 to #136 in five years.

She is still more than twice as popular as she was in 2003 — borrowed fame leaves a residue. But the direction is unambiguous, and it has been unambiguous for five straight years.

The difference between Bella and Elsa

Compare Bella's curve with Elsa's one-year spike after Frozen (526 babies to 1,107 and straight back down). A book-and-film franchise runs for years, so its name rises for years — and, crucially, it has time to start becoming a name in its own right. Thousands of Bellas were born to parents who simply liked the sound their older cousins had made fashionable. That second, organic population is why Bella declined over a decade instead of evaporating in two years.

But note what the organic population couldn't do: hold the level. Once the franchise stopped feeding the name new fans, each year's parents were slightly less likely to choose it than the year before. Borrowed fame doesn't vanish; it amortizes.

Our advice: A name mid-franchise is at its most dangerous — not because it will crash, but because it won't. Bella in 2012 looked established, a top-60 name with years of stability. What she actually was: a name whose supply of new choosers had already been cut off. If you love a name that a book or film made famous, look at whether it is still rising while the franchise is quiet. If it only holds its level while the machine is running, expect the long slide once it stops.

Follow the full rise and slide: Bella, alongside the other franchise-era curves in our baby names by decade archive.