While I was checking out my traffic stats the other day, I noticed that my Zoella page has been getting a weirdly high number of visitors lately. Which is odd, because Zoella isn’t exactly an in-demand baby name.
In the U.S., usage of rare Zoella peaked in the last decades of the 1800s and first decades of the 1900s. The name has only appeared in the SSA’s baby name data a total of three times:
- 2012: unlisted
- 2011: 5 baby girls named Zoella
- 2010: unlisted
- […]
- 1922: unlisted
- 1921: 5 baby girls named Zoella
- 1920: 5 baby girls named Zoella [debut]
- 1919: unlisted
Why are people searching for a name that hasn’t been in style for nearly a century? And, why might Zoella have popped back into the data recently?
Beyond the fact that Zoella looks like a combination of the trendy names Zoe and Ella, my best guess is popular beauty and fashion blogger/vlogger Zoella, a.k.a. 23-year-old Zoë Sugg of Wiltshire, England.
Zoella won the Cosmo Blog Award for “Best established beauty blog” in 2011 and, just a few weeks ago, won “Best British Vlogger” at BBC Radio 1’s Teen Awards. She currently has around 3 million subscribers on YouTube.
If Zoella’s visibility has indeed inspired parents to start naming their baby girls Zoella, this could be the very first case of a blogger/vlogger affecting the baby name charts.
Do you like the name Zoella? Do you think it’ll become more popular over the next few years?
P.S. I’ve checked the full England & Wales popularity lists going back to 2007. So far, no Zoella.
Update, Oct. 2020: Zoella has appeared in the data quite a bit since I published this post seven years ago! Here are the latest numbers for Zoella:
- 2019: 31 baby girls named Zoella
- 2018: 34 baby girls named Zoella
- 2017: 13 baby girls named Zoella
- 2016: 20 baby girls named Zoella
- 2015: 20 baby girls named Zoella
- 2014: 13 baby girls named Zoella
- 2013: 6 baby girls named Zoella
- 2012: unlisted
- 2011: 5 baby girls named Zoella
- 2010: unlisted
And here’s a visual:
I find it very interesting that the baby name data seems to mirror (with a several-year lag) the Google Trends graph for Zoella:
(That high point happened in December of 2014.)
Where do you think the name Zoella is headed? Will usage start to taper off (like the searches did), or will the name stick around in the data (despite the waning popularity of the vlogger who drew attention to it in the first place)?
Update, Jan. 2025: Last month, Zoë Sugg and her boyfriend, Alfred “Alfie” Deyes, welcomed their second daughter, Novie Nell. (Here’s the IG announcement.) Their first daughter, born in mid-2021, was named Ottilie Rue. The name Ottilie was already becoming trendy in England and Wales when they chose it, but Novie is still quite rare. (It was given to just 8 baby girls in 2023.) Do you think we’ll see an uptick in the usage of Novie in England and Wales in 2025?
Sources: Zoe Sugg – Wikipedia, SSA
Image: Adapted from Zoe Sugg by Gage Skidmore under CC BY-SA 2.0.
[Latest update: Jan. 2025]