Meaning and history
Belle is a short form of Isabella and other names ending in belle, and it is also linked to the French word belle, meaning “beautiful.” A well-known bearer was Belle Starr (1848–1889), an outlaw of the American West whose real given name was Maybelle.
20062006: 146 births, rank #1,505
2007: 144 births, rank #1,570
2008: 170 births, rank #1,395
2009: 136 births, rank #1,639
2010: 155 births, rank #1,456
20112011: 144 births, rank #1,524
2012: 163 births, rank #1,408
2013: 190 births, rank #1,254
2014: 251 births, rank #1,032
2015: 251 births, rank #1,049
20162016: 293 births, rank #935
2017: 339 births, rank #806
2018: 312 births, rank #870
2019: 307 births, rank #874
2020: 255 births, rank #1,000
20212021: 241 births, rank #1,045
2022: 274 births, rank #971
2023: 250 births, rank #1,012
2024: 255 births, rank #1,004
20252025: 247 births, rank #1,013
Belle rose from #1000 to #971 for girls between 2020 and 2022. Its highest annual birth count came in 1915, with 407 births.