Arabella

The earliest known bearer is Arabella de Leuchars, recorded in Scotland around 1193, whose name appears in various charters as Orabilis, Orabella, and finally Arabella. The name remained primarily a Scottish aristocratic choice for several centuries.

Lady Arabella Stuart (1575-1615), cousin of King James I of England, brought the name to wider English attention; her tragic secret marriage and imprisonment in the Tower of London became the subject of plays and ballads well into the 18th century.

Arabella gained literary prominence through George Frideric Handel’s opera Rodelinda and, most notably, through Charlotte Lennox’s novel The Female Quixote (1752), whose heroine Arabella reads too many French romances.

Richard Strauss later immortalized the name in his opera Arabella (1933), set in 1860s Vienna, with a libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal.

In the United States, Arabella appeared in the top 1000 during the late 19th century but vanished from the rankings between 1940 and 2005.

It returned dramatically, benefiting from the broader revival of elaborate Victorian names such as Isabella and Amelia, and reached the top 150 by the early 2020s. The name also enjoys strong usage in the United Kingdom and Australia.

Contemporary bearers include Arabella Kushner, granddaughter of President Donald Trump, whose birth in 2011 coincided with a sharp uptick in the name’s American usage.