Bella is a feminine given name. It is a diminutive form of names ending in -bella. ''Bella'' is related to the Italian, Spanish, Greek, Portuguese and Latin words for beautiful, and to the name
Belle, meaning ''beautiful'' in French.
It increased in usage following the publication of the ''
Twilight
Twilight is daylight illumination produced by diffuse sky radiation when the Sun is below the horizon as sunlight from the upper atmosphere is scattered in a way that illuminates both the Earth's lower atmosphere and also the Earth's surf ...
'' books by
Stephenie Meyer
Stephenie Meyer (; Morgan; born December 24, 1973) is an American novelist and film producer. She is best known for writing the vampire literature, vampire romance series ''Twilight (novel series), Twilight'', which has sold over 160 million ...
.
It is also known for being a nickname to Isabella, Annabella or Arabella.
Given name
People
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Bella Abzug (1920–1998), American politician and prominent figure in the women’s movement
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Bella Agossou (born 1981), Beninese actress
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Bella Akhmadulina (1937–2010), Soviet/Russian poet, writer, and translator
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Bella Alarie (born 1998), American basketball player
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Bella Alten (1877–1962), Polish operatic soprano
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Bella Alubo (born 1993), Nigerian musician, singer, and songwriter
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Bella Andre (fl. 2010), American author
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Bella Angara (born 1939), Filipina politician and former governor of Aurora province
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Bella Bayliss (born 1977), Scottish triathlete
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Bella Bellow (1945–1973), Togolese singer
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Bella Bixby
Annabella Madeleine Bixby (; born November 20, 1995) is an American professional Association football, soccer player who plays as a Goalkeeper (association football), goalkeeper for Portland Thorns FC of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). ...
(born 1995), American soccer player
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Bella Blue (born 1982), American burlesque dancer and producer
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Bella Burge (1877–1962), American-born British actress, music hall performer, and boxing promoter
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Bella A. Burnasheva (born 1944), Soviet/Russian astronomer
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Bella Cortez (born 1944), Cuban actress and dancer
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Bella Darvi (1928–1971), Polish-born French actress
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Bella Davidovich (born 1928), Soviet-born American classical pianist
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Bella Dayne (born 1988), German actress
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Bella Disu (born 1986), Nigerian businesswoman
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Bella Dodd
Bella Dodd (née Visono; 1904
– 29 April 1969
) was a teacher, lawyer, and labor union activist, member of the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) and New York City Teachers Union (TU) in the 1930s and 1940s ("one of Communi ...
(1904–1969), American teacher, lawyer, labor union activist, and communist-turned anti-communist
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Bella Dorita (1901–2001), Spanish cabaret singer, dancer, and vedette
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Bella Duffy (1849–1926), Irish translator and writer
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Bella Emberg
Bella Emberg (born Sybil Dyke; 16 September 1937 – 12 January 2018) was an English actress whose television career spanned 60 years.
Early life and career
Emberg was born on 16 September 1937 in Brighton, Sussex, and grew up wanting to be an ...
(1937–2018), English comedic actress
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Bella Feldman (born 1930), American sculptor
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Bella Ferraro (born 1994), Australian singer
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Bella Flores (1936–2013), Filipina film actress
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Bella Forsgrén (born 1992), Finnish politician
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Bella French Swisher (1837–1893), American author, editor, and litterateur
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Bella Freud (born 1961), London-based fashion designer
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Bella Fromm (1890–1972), German journalist and author of Jewish heritage
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Bella Galhos (born 1972), East Timorese former independence activist
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Bella Awa Gassama, Gambian actress
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Bella Hall Gauld (1878–1961), Canadian labour educator, political activist, and pianist
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Bella Gesser (born 1985), Israeli chess player
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Bella Goodall (1851–1884), English soubrette of the Victorian theatre
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Bella Guerin
Julia Margaret Guerin Halloran Lavender (23 April 1858 in Williamstown, Colony of Victoria – 26 July 1923 in Adelaide, South Australia), known popularly as Bella Guerin, was an Australian feminist, women's rights activist, women's suffr ...
(1858–1923), Australian feminist, women’s activist, women’s suffragist, anti-conscriptionist, political activist, and schoolteacher
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Bella Hadid (born 1996), American model
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Bella Hammond (1932–2020), American activist and commercial fisherman
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Bella Hardy, English folk musician, singer and songwriter
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Bella Heathcote (born 1987), Australian actress and model
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Bella Horwitz, Bohemian Yiddish writer and historian
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Bella Hristova (born 1985), Bulgarian-American violinist
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Bella Igla (born 1985), Israeli woman chess grandmaster
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Bella Jakubiak (born 1983), Australian chef
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Bella Jarrett (1926–2007), American stage, television, and film actress and novelist
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Bella Jimenez (born ), Ecuadorian politician
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Bella Joseph, American alleged to be a Soviet spy
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Bella Keyzer (1922–1992), Scottish weaver, welder, and shipyard worker
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Bella Kocharyan
Bella Kocharyan (; born 31 January 1954, Stepanakert) is the wife of former Armenian President Robert Kocharyan and is the former First Lady of Armenia.
Kocharyan graduated the Yerevan Medical Institute's Sanitary-Hygienic Medicine Department ...
(born 1954), wife of Armenian former President Robert Kocharyan
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Bella Clara Landauer (1874–1960), American collector and writer
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Bella La Rosa (born 1949), Venezuelan pageant titleholder
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Bella Lewitzky
Bella Rebecca Lewitzky (January 13, 1916 – July 16, 2004) was an American modern dance choreographer, dancer and teacher.
Lewitzky was a lifelong advocate for artistic freedom in dance, and continuously pursued political and artistic objec ...
(1916–2004), American modern dance choreographer and teacher
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Bella Li (born 1983), Chinese-born Australian poet
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Bella MacCallum (1886–1927), New Zealand and British botanist and mycologist
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Bella Mackie (born 1983), English journalist and author
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Bella Milo (born 1986), Samoan rugby union player
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Bella Myat Thiri Lwin (born 1999), Burmese actress, model, and beauty pageant title holder
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Bella Nagy (1879–1947), Hungarian actress
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Bella Nisan, Russian ophthalmologist
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Bella Ouellette (1886–1945), Canadian actress
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Bella Paalen (1881–1964), Austrian-American operatic soprano of Hungarian origin
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Bella Paige (born 2001), Australian singer
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Bella Paredes (born 2002), Ecuadorian weightlifter
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Bella bat R. Jakob Perlhefter (c. 1650-1709/1710), Czech professional Hebrew letter writer, businesswoman, and music instructor
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Bella Piero (born 1996), Brazilian actress
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Bella Poarch (born 1997), Filipino-American singer and social media personality
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Bella Ramsey
Isabella May Ramsey (born September 2003) is an English actor. They are known for their breakthrough role as young noblewoman Lyanna Mormont in the HBO fantasy television series '' Game of Thrones'' (2016–2019) and Ellie in the HBO post-ap ...
(born 2003), English actor and singer
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Bella Ratchinskaia (born 1953), Russian ballerina, ballet teacher, and choreographer
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Bella Reay (1900–1979), English footballer
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Bella Rosenfeld
Bella Rosenfeld Chagall (, ) (14 December 1889 – 2 September 1944) was a Jewish Russian writer born in Vitebsk, Russian Empire, nowadays Belarus, and the first wife of painter Marc Chagall. She was the subject of many of Chagall's paintings i ...
(1895–1944), Belarusian writer, first wife of painter Marc Chagall
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Bella Santiago (born 1989), Filipino singer
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Bella Shaw, American journalist and news presenter
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Bella Shmurda (born 1997), Nigerian singer
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Bella Shteinbuk (born 1960), Israeli pianist and educator
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Bella Shumiatcher (1911–1990), Russian-Canadian-American pianist and music educator
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Bella Sims (born 2005), American swimmer
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Bella Smith (born 2001), Australian rules footballer
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Bella Zilfa Spencer (1840–1867), English-born American novelist and editor
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Bella Spewack (1899–1990), Romanian-American writer, half of a husband-and-wife writing team
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Bella Starace Sainati (1878–1958), Italian stage and film actress
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Bella Subbotovskaya (1937–1982), Soviet mathematician
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Bella Taylor Smith, Australian singer
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Bella Thomasson (1874–1959), British bookmaker
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Bella Thorne
Annabella Avery Thorne (born October 8, 1997) is an American actress, singer, and writer. She first received recognition for her roles as Margaux Darling in the series '' Dirty Sexy Money'' (2007–2008) and as Ruthy Spivey in the drama series ...
(born 1997), American actress
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Bella Tovey (1926–2019), Polish Holocaust survivor
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Bella van der Spiegel-Hage (born 1948), Dutch former professional cyclist
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Bella Clara Ventura, Colombian-Mexican novelist and poet
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Bella Sidney Woolf (1877–1960), English author
Fictional characters
* Bella, a character in the CBeebies show, ''
Tweenies''
* Bella Baxter, the protagonist of the film ''
Poor Things (film)
''Poor Things'' is a 2023 film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and written by Tony McNamara (writer), Tony McNamara, based on the Poor Things, 1992 novel by Alasdair Gray. A co-production between Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, ...
''
* Bella Bunny, a bilingual rabbit from the
Chuck E. Cheese restaurants
* Bella the Bunny Fairy, from the ''
Rainbow Magic'' book franchise
*
Bella Cooper
Isabella Jane "Bella" Durville (also Cooper) is a fictional character on the New Zealand soap opera '' Shortland Street'' who was portrayed by Amelia Reid-Meredith between her arrival in September 2010 and her departure in November 2016. She was ...
, from the New Zealand soap opera ''Shortland Street''
* Bella Dawson, the protagonist of the Nickelodeon television series ''
Bella and the Bulldogs''
*
Bella Goth, from ''The Sims'' series of video games
* Bella Lasagne, an Italian cafe owner from ''
Fireman Sam
''Fireman Sam'' () is a British animated children's television series about a fireman named Sam, his fellow firefighters, and other residents in the fictional Welsh rural village of Pontypandy (a portmanteau of two real towns, Pontypridd and T ...
''
*
Bella Nixon, from the Australian television soap opera ''Home and Away''
* Bella Noche, a character who first appeared in the episode "
Betty" of the animated series ''Adventure Time''
* Bella Pesky, the little sister of Maggie, Aldrin and Pupert Pesky in ''
The Buzz on Maggie''
*
Bella Swan
Isabella "Bella" Marie Cullen (née Swan) is the protagonist character of the ''Twilight'' book series by Stephenie Meyer. She is initially an ordinary teenage girl, but during the series, Bella falls in love and marries a vampire Edward Culle ...
, the human protagonist of the ''Twilight'' series
*
Bellatrix Lestrange
Bellatrix Lestrange () is a fictional character in the ''Harry Potter'' book series written by J. K. Rowling. She evolved from an unnamed peripheral character in ''Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'' into a major antagonist in subsequent novel ...
, nicknamed Bella, a Death Eater and antagonist in the "Harry Potter" series
* Bella Lind, from the science-fiction novel ''
Pushing Ice''
See also
*
Bella (surname)
References
{{given name, type=both
Feminine given names
English feminine given names