Bela
loc · Latin script
Meaning: Bela is a biblical Hebrew name meaning "to swallow" or "devour"
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 42 countries · latest register: SURS, 2025
/bɛlɐ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Bela is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Hungary than in any other country, where it is the 80th most common given name.
- HUHungary1 in 225(measured from records)
- RSSerbia≈1 in 8.4K
- RORomania≈1 in 15K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Bela itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Hungary (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 213 (measured from records)
- 1 in 225 (inferred from the name graph)
43,353 people, 2025
recorded for this name
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Hungary
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts
(measured from records)One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Béla in HU Hungary, US United States, RO Romania and 1 more and Բելա in AM Armenia.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)Bela is a biblical Hebrew name meaning "to swallow" or "devour." In the Bible, this Bela was a descendant of Reuben, noted in the tribal genealogies.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Biblical Names Compiled Database
Attested across 11 languages in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Bela, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Bela counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HU Hungary | #80 | 43,353 | 1 in 225 | 43K | Béla | 150 |
| BR Brazil | — | 4,642 | 1 in 46K | 4.6K | — | — |
| US United States | — | 2,579 | 1 in 129K | 1.7K | Béla | 213 |
| RO Romania | — | ≈1,400 est. | ≈1 in 15K | — | Béla | 46 |
| AM Armenia | #468 | ≈890 est. | ≈1 in 3.4K | — | Բելա | 13 |
| RS Serbia | — | ≈840 est. | ≈1 in 8.4K | — | Béla | 25 |
| SI Slovenia | — | 97 | 1 in 22K | 104 | — | 5 |
43,353 people counted by Nyilvántartó — Top-100 given names in population (2020–2025), 2025. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Nyilvántartó — Top-100 given names in population (2020–2025); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; SURS — resident population given names; stat.si Imena rojstva — full name register (per-token frequency + rank). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses
(measured from records)Bela is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
The Hebrew name Bela (בֶּלַע) is generally understood to mean "swallowing," "devouring," or "destruction".
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
Derived from the Hebrew root בָּלַע (bala), meaning 'destruction', 'swallowing', or 'devouring'.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
As the firstborn of Benjamin, Bela represents the primary line of inheritance and leadership within the Benjamite tribe.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
Swallowing; destruction; devouring
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
In English, Biblical name
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name
(measured from records)- Bela Ib. 1016SKKing of Hungary (1016-1063)
- Béla II of Hungaryb. 1108HUHungarian king (1108-1141)
- Béla III of Hungaryb. 1148HUKing of Hungary and Croatia from 1172 to 1196
- Bela IVb. 1206HUKing of Hungary (1206-1270)
- Béla Bartókb. 1881HUHungarian composer and pianist (1881–1945)
- Bela Lugosib. 1882USHungarian-American actor (1882–1956)
- Béla Balázsb. 1884HUHungarian film critic, aesthetician, writer and poet (1884–1949)
- Béla Kunb. 1886HUHungarian Communist revolutionary and politician, the de facto leader of the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919, People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs
- Béla Tarrb. 1955HUHungarian filmmaker and anarchist (1955–2026)
- Dalila Bellab. 2001CAnot in their usual nameCanadian actress
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them
(machine-generated)Evidence
(measured from records)85 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 42 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 4.6K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 4.6K | #2,888 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 2.6K | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 1.7K | #6,256 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 1.1K | #8,902 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 895 | #6,256 |
| SI Slovenia | SURS — resident population given names | 2025 | 59 | #1,009 |
| SI Slovenia | stat.si Imena rojstva — full name register (per-token frequency + rank) | — | 59 | #1,995 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 39 | #2,888 |
| SI Slovenia | stat.si Imena rojstva — full name register (per-token frequency + rank) | — | 39 | #2,504 |
| SI Slovenia | SURS — resident population given names | 2025 | 38 | #1,258 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 21 | — |
Reference works 6
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- Where does the name Bela come from?
- Bela is a biblical Hebrew name meaning "to swallow" or "devour." In the Bible, this Bela was a descendant of Reuben, noted in the tribal genealogies. Recorded by Biblical Names Compiled Database.
- What does the name Bela mean?
- Recorded meaning: Bela is a biblical Hebrew name meaning "to swallow" or "devour."
- How do you pronounce Bela?
- A machine transcription gives /bɛlɐ/ (IPA) for Portuguese.
- In which country does Bela have the most bearers?
- In Hungary, the national register counted about 43 thousand people named Bela, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled béla.
- Where is Bela most common?
- Bela is densest in Hungary, where the national register counts about 1 in 225 people carrying it.
- How common is the name Bela?
- In Hungary, the national register counted 43,353 people named Bela in 2025, about 1 in 225 residents.
- How common is Bela compared with other names?
- In Hungary, Bela is the 80th most common given name of 18,528 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Bela?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/belaThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Bela” — the 80th most common given name in Hungary. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.