While out on our road trip last week, we spotted a Cabela’s, which is a store that sells hunting gear, fishing gear, camping gear, and so forth.
I’d never been inside Cabela’s before, so we stopped in to take a look. Also, my husband wanted to buy a tackle box.
Overall, it was an interesting place. I wasn’t keen on all the gun-stuff, but I did like the creative taxidermy displays:
And, of course, the trip to Cabela’s reminded me that the baby name Cabela has been on the SSA’s baby name list since 2009:
- 2012: 10 baby girls named Cabela
- 2011: 8 baby girls named Cabela
- 2010: 7 baby girls named Cabela
- 2009: 7 baby girls named Cabela [debut]
- 2008: unlisted
Variants of Cabela have been on the charts even longer. Here’s Cabella:
- 2012: 20 baby girls named Cabella
- 2011: 14 baby girls named Cabella
- 2010: 13 baby girls named Cabella
- 2009: 9 baby girls named Cabella
- 2008: unlisted
- 2007: 5 baby girls named Cabella
- 2006: 6 baby girls named Cabella [debut]
- 2005: unlisted
And here’s Kabella:
- 2012: 16 baby girls named Kabella
- 2011: 9 baby girls named Kabella
- 2010: 9 baby girls named Kabella
- 2009: 9 baby girls named Kabella
- 2008: 5 baby girls named Kabella [debut]
- 2007: unlisted
I’m thinking parents prefer these “extra L” variants because they look more like traditional -bella names, e.g., Isabella, Arabella. (So far, no Kabelas on the list.)
I wonder how many of these parents are hardcore outdoorsmen/outdoorswomen vs. how many are not (but just happen to like the sound of the name).
So where does the name Cabela come from?
A surname. Cabela’s was founded in 1961 by Richard Cabela, his wife Mary, and his brother James. Dick and Jim are the sons of Albin Cabela, who was the son of James Cabela, born in 1869 in Bohemia (immigrated in 1885).
Cabela, therefore, seems to be a Czech surname. I can’t find any information about it, though, so perhaps it’s an altered/Anglicized form of the original family name.
What do you think of the baby name Cabela?
Source: Cabela’s: Company History
