Holiday Calendar

National Stella Day

Next celebratedSaturday, July 10, 2027

Stella is simply the Latin for star, and the day goes to every one of them, including the Stellas whose name is really a Greek one that wandered into the same spelling.

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Last updated September 7, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATEJuly 10
OBSERVED INInternationally
CATEGORYNames
ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY
Not documented
FIRST OBSERVED
Not documented
HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

The oldest trace is a listing, not a founding.

No founder, proclamation or establishing record has been located for National Stella Day, and no source explains the July 10 date. The earliest hard trace is a national-day registry listing archived in August 2022, which dates the listing rather than the day.

+ Know the story? Submit a founder Help us complete this holiday
INTRO

A name that fell off the map and came back higher

In 1995 the name behind National Stella Day went to 125 girls. Not 125 in one state, and not 125 in one city. That was the national total for the whole United States, and it left Stella outside the country's top 1,000 names.

By 2018 the same name had climbed to number 38, with 5,164 girls, the highest it has ever stood in 146 years of federal records.

What makes the swing unusual is not the comeback itself, because plenty of names come back. Only five girls' names in the whole 1880 to 2025 record were once a top-100 name, then fell out of the top 1,000 altogether, then returned to a better rank than they had ever held. Stella is one of them, alongside Ella, Violet, Sadie and Sophie.

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ORIGINS

Stella Day history

INTRODUCTION

Ask what Stella means and the answer is easy. It is the ordinary Latin word for a star.

Ask which Stella, and the answer stops being easy. Behind the Name carries two of them, and they are not the same name.

CHAPTER 01

Two names wearing one spelling

Behind the Name keeps separate entries. The first is the Latin one, used in English, Italian, Dutch and German. The second is Greek, a diminutive of Styliani, and its spelling is recorded as "influenced by that of Stella 1."

So two names with different roots ended up in the same six letters, one of them pulled there by the other. A Greek Stella and an English Stella can sit in the same room with no root in common.

CHAPTER 02

A word that had its own career

The Latin root did not wait for the name to become fashionable. English took stellaris and produced stellar in the 1650s, meaning simply of or pertaining to stars.

The everyday modern sense arrived much later and by a different road. The Online Etymology Dictionary dates "outstanding, leading" to 1883 and derives it, in its words, "from the theatrical sense of star."

The given name took its time too. Behind the Name records that it "was not commonly used as a given name until the 19th century." By the time the American record opens in 1880, that adoption has already happened and Stella is sitting at rank 60.

CHAPTER 03

A day nobody signed

The name is documented year by year from 1880 onward. The observance has no proclamation, no registration and no founder to interview, and nothing in the record sets out why July 10 rather than any other date.

What does survive is an archived listing from August 2022. It proves the day was in circulation by then. It does not say who put it there.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Stellar enters English

The adjective arrives from Late Latin stellaris, built directly on the noun stella.

Already there in year one

Stella appears in the first year of American federal name records at rank 60, with 414 girls.

The high point by share

891 girls, rank 55, and a share of 499.5 per 100,000 that the name has never matched since.

The long run ends

Stella closes a 44-year unbroken stretch inside the American top 100 at rank 96, then drops out.

The floor

Just 125 girls nationwide, deep outside the top 1,000, the thinnest year in the whole record.

Best year on record

Rank 38 and 5,164 girls, both the highest figures Stella has posted since records began.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why National Stella Day Matters

REVIVAL

Out of the top 100 from 1924 to 2009. Back since.

Stella has been inside the American top 100 every year since 2010, after 86 years outside it. A name day for it lands on a name in current use rather than one being revived from memory.

CONTINUITY

An unbroken federal record

Stella appears in all 146 annual files the Social Security Administration has published, from 1880 to 2025. There is no gap to argue over, only a very deep dip.

CALENDAR

Europe already keeps Stella days

Six European countries hold a traditional name day for Stella, on dates spread from July to December. A July 10 observance joins a custom that was running long before it.

GOOD TO KNOW

National Stella Day Around the World

Sweden

13th in 2025, the highest of the national rankings quoted here

Puerto Rico

37th in 2025, ahead of the United States

United States

52nd in 2025, with 4,136 girls given the name that year

Canada

59th in 2024, the closest of these to the American position

Italy

74th in 2024, one of the four languages the Latin Stella is used in

England and Wales

333rd in 2025, far below the Swedish standing

MYTH VS FACT

Common Misconceptions

The myth

The revival has made Stella more common than it has ever been.

The truth

Its best-ever rank came in 2018. Its best-ever share did not. In 1889 Stella went to 499.5 of every 100,000 American girls; in 2018, at rank 38, it went to 303.6. The name climbed higher on a list that had spread much thinner.

The myth

Stella has only ever been a girls' name in the United States.

The truth

It turns up on the boys' side of the federal files in 52 of the 146 years on record, though it never passed 13 births in a single year.

GET INVOLVED

How to Observe National Stella Day

EDITOR'S PICK

Read both entries behind the spelling

Look up the Latin Stella and the Greek Stella side by side in an onomastic reference such as Behind the Name. Most people who carry the name have only ever met one of them.

LOOK

Look up the year a Stella you know was born

The Social Security Administration publishes a file for every year since 1880. Finding where the name stood that year turns an abstract curve into one person's place in it.

PUT

Put the date into a recurring calendar entry

A name day only works if somebody remembers it. Enter July 10 once as a repeating event and it arrives on its own every year.

ASK

Ask a Stella how they got the name

The federal files show what the name did in aggregate but never why one family chose it. A short conversation fills in the part no dataset holds.

COMPARE

Compare the name across two countries

Behind the Name publishes national rankings side by side, and the gap between Sweden and England and Wales is wide. Pick two countries and see how far apart the same name sits.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Stella Day?

1 / 9

What does the name Stella mean in Latin?

Answer

No. It is an unofficial observance with no legal standing, so it is a normal working day.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

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