Gabriela
Meaning
“God is my strength (Brazilian spelling of the Italian Gabriella)”
Famously borne by Gabriela Mistral, whose pen name honors either two poets she loved or the archangel and the mistral wind.
The story
Gabriela is the feminine of Gabriel, God is my strength, in the spelling Brazil and Spanish America share, and it is one of the great Hispanic girls' classics in these pages: about 86,200 American girls, ahead of Daniela's 68,500, built on the same community staircase, about 1,200 in the 1960s rising to a crest of 28,600 in the 2000s, with 5,900 so far this decade, all girls. The name's literary credentials run deep on both coasts of its world: a Chilean poet named Gabriela won the Nobel in 1945, and a Jorge Amado heroine made the name synonymous with Bahia itself. In our records: 86,200 girls to 370 boys. The archangel's daughter, a Nobel, a novel, and a staircase forty years long: Gabriela carries the full dowry, lightly.
Gabriela around the world
One shared root links 4 names across 4 languages.
Shared root: from Hebrew Gavriel "God is my strength", the annunciating archangel
The constellation
More branches
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Gabriela peaked in the 2000s and the 2010s in nearly equal measure.
Popularity in Brazil
416,654 people · the #65 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 487 · median age 21
Among people named Gabriela living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 2000s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 16,624 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Gabriela
Most people given the name Gabriela in the United States are teenagers or young adults today.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Gabriela deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Gabriela 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 Gabriela fits with your family’s names and surname.
Keep exploring
Italian Brazilian baby names · Spanish baby names · Portuguese and Brazilian baby names
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