Adele
Meaning
means 'noble', from the Germanic element 'adal'
Also written Adèle.
The story
Adele descends from the Germanic word for noble, kin to Adelaide and Adeline, with a long European pedigree; a daughter of William the Conqueror bore the Latin form Adela. In America it was a turn-of-the-century favorite, at home among the Claras and Estelles, before slipping gradually out of fashion across the middle of the twentieth century. Then a young Londoner named Adele Adkins signed a record deal, and by the time her album 21 swept the Grammys in 2012, hers was among the most recognizable voices on earth, Rolling in the Deep and Someone Like You playing everywhere at once. The name had already begun creeping back into American nurseries, and its return alongside her reign is hard to miss; we cannot prove the connection, but the timing lines up. Adele now reads both vintage and current, a rare double.
Adele around the world
One shared root links 21 names across 3 languages.
Shared root: a Germanic family built on adal "noble": Adalheidis "of noble kind" wore down through Old French Aalis into Alice and a crowd of descendants
The constellation
15 more branches of this family
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Adele peaked in the 1890s and the 2020s in nearly equal measure.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
1,821 people · the #5,463 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 111,111 · median age 21
Among people named Adele living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 2010s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 299 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Adele
People given the name Adele in the United States span the generations: the middle half were born anywhere from 1950 to 2019. Age is the one thing the name won't tell you.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Adele deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Adele truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Adele fits with your family’s names and surname.
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