girl's name
Camélia
ka-may-LEE-ah
- Origin French
- Gender Girl
- Letters 7
- Popularity Top 1000 (France)
- Births on record 16,025
France
#150
2025 births
Camélia is a girl's name taken from the camellia, a flower Linnaeus named after a Jesuit missionary botanist called Kamel — so the name is a surname twice removed. It ranks 150th in France and is rising in our data.
- Camélia is a name of French origin.
- Peaked in France in 2021, when 500 babies were given the name.
- It has been rising over the past decade in France.
- Today about 1 in 1,661 babies in France is given this name.
- First appears in birth records in 1900.
Camélia over time
Births per decade in France, 1900s to 2020s. The striped bar is the 2020s, still in progress — it covers 2020 to 2025, not a full ten years.
Show the numbers
| Decade | Births |
|---|---|
| 1900s | 140 |
| 1910s | 110 |
| 1920s | 80 |
| 1930s | 30 |
| 1940s | 50 |
| 1950s | 75 |
| 1960s | 55 |
| 1970s | 55 |
| 1980s | 215 |
| 1990s | 1,275 |
| 2000s | 2,995 |
| 2010s | 4,180 |
| 2020s (to 2025) | 2,655 |
What Camélia means
Camélia is the camellia flower, and the flower is named after a person — so the name means nothing in itself. Behind it is a surname, Kamel, and behind that a Czech and Slovak word rather than anything floral.
Where Camélia comes from
Camélia is the French for the camellia, which Linnaeus named in 1753 after Georg Joseph Kamel, a Moravian Jesuit who worked as a pharmacist in the Philippines and catalogd its plants; he latinized his own name to Camellus, and Linnaeus built the genus on that. Kamel is a Czech and Slovak surname unrelated to the Arabic kamil, meaning perfect, though the two are frequently confused. The flower reached Europe from China and Japan in the eighteenth century and became a Parisian obsession in the nineteenth: Dumas fils's La Dame aux Camélias in 1848 turned it into a symbol of the courtesan, and the novel became Verdi's La Traviata. Chanel later adopted it as a house emblem. The name is separately used in Arabic-speaking France as a form of Kamila.
Camélia in use
Camélia ranks 150th in France with about 405 births in 2025 and is rising in our data with a peak in 2021. Our records carry it from 1900. It reaches 495th in Ireland, which is unexpected, and 1,910th in England and Wales. The unaccented Camelia appears separately in French records, and Camila and Camille are different names that are often confused with it.
How popular is Camélia?
In 2025, Camélia was given to 355 babies in France, ranking #150 that year. It is a well-established, commonly used name.
Where Camélia is used
French counts are rounded to the nearest five and nothing below five is published, so these figures show the shape of the name's use rather than an exact tally. Data & sources.
How Camélia is spelled
Birth registers count each spelling separately, so every one has its own ranking.
| Spelling | What it is | Births on record |
|---|---|---|
| Camelia | Camelia is Camélia without the acute accent, and the spelling recorded in France, where it ranks #776. | 5,595 |
| Camèlia | Camèlia is a rare spelling of Camélia, written with a grave accent and recorded about 5 times, mostly in France. | 5 |
Names that peaked alongside Camélia
These names rose and fell in the same era, which is why they tend to sound like they belong together.
Parents who like Camélia also like
Names whose popularity has risen and fallen in step with Camélia over the last century — the same taste, a different name.
1 nickname for Camélia
Each one is a name in its own right — the figure underneath is how it is doing today, so you can see which short forms are rising and which have faded.
Camélia in other languages
The same name as it is spelled elsewhere — not shortenings, and not different names that merely sound alike. Each one has its own record here.
Sibling names for Camélia
Names from the same era that won't rhyme or share an initial with Camélia — the two things that make a sibling set grate.
Common questions about Camélia
What does the name Camélia mean?
It is the camellia flower, which Linnaeus named after the botanist Georg Joseph Kamel.
Is Camélia related to Camille?
No. Camille comes from the Roman family name Camillus and is a separate name.
Is it related to the Arabic kamil?
No. Kamel is a Czech and Slovak surname; the resemblance to Arabic kamil, perfect, is coincidental.
How popular is Camélia?
150th in France, where it is rising.
Is Camélia a girl's or a boy's name?
Camélia is given almost entirely to girls in birth records.
What are the nicknames for Camélia?
Camélia is usually shortened to Cami.
Is Camélia a good name?
That is not something records can settle, but they can tell you what you would be choosing. Camélia currently ranks #150 in France. It has been rising over the past decade. Everything else — how it sounds with your surname, who it reminds you of — is yours.