Izabela
A Hebrew name meaning "god is my oath". Around 159,000 Polish women carry it, so it stays familiar, but it's fading: fewer girls got it last year than in years past.
Izabela Pronunciation
Izabela is pronounced ee-zah-BE-lah (/izaˈbɛla/).
What Izabela means
Where Izabela comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Izabela comes from Hebrew, from the same root as Elisheva, the source that also gave Europe the name Elizabeth. The old sense is "God is my oath," in Polish "bóg moją przysięgą." Isabel is the medieval variant that traveled through Provence and Spain, and from that line Izabela and Izabella settled into Polish. Friends shorten it to Iza. Some reach for Bela.
One Izabela anchors the name in Polish memory. Izabela Czartoryska gathered paintings and relics at Puławy and opened the Temple of the Sibyl in 1801, often counted the first Polish museum. Her collecting saved objects that a partitioned country could not otherwise keep.
On a school register the name reads plainly, Izabela before the surname, with Iza the version called across the corridor. The oath in it is old. Whatever a bearer makes of it, the meaning underneath stays "God is my oath."
When Izabela celebrates name day
Izabela appears 7 times in the Polish name day calendar, 3 of them as a main name, the first on 23 February.
The days Polish calendars list this name on. By custom you celebrate one of them, usually the first after your birthday.
Rarer dates. Only the most complete calendars add this name on these days. Most skip them, so hardly anyone celebrates then.
How many people are named Izabela
1 in 142 women in Poland is named Izabela. 159,303 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #92 among female names.
Izabela's popularity over time
319 girls were given the name in 2025, ranking #141 among newborns. It has been falling steadily since 2000. Still the #92 name among living women, even as it slips to #141 among newborns.
Where Izabela is most popular
Izabela is most popular in Podlaskie, 102% above the national average (234 girls born 2019–2025), followed by Lesser Poland (+60%) and Subcarpathian (+58%). It is least common in Silesian and West Pomeranian, 45% and 42% below average respectively.
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Podlaskie234 girls born+102%
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Lesser Poland640 girls born+60%
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Subcarpathian336 girls born+58%
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Lublin214 girls born+18%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian221 girls born+15%
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Masovian637 girls born+2%
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Pomeranian250 girls born−4%
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Świętokrzyskie89 girls born−9%
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Warmian-Masurian112 girls born−11%
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Lower Silesian208 girls born−25%
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Greater Poland282 girls born−26%
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Lubusz64 girls born−27%
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Łódź161 girls born−28%
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Opole52 girls born−36%
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West Pomeranian87 girls born−42%
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Silesian220 girls born−45%
Izabela as a middle name
Izabela is a first name for 159,303 women in Poland and a middle name for another 79,799, a 67/33 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 37th, between Bożena (80,221) and Natalia (79,190).
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#35 Agata81,382
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#36 Bożena80,221
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#37 Izabela79,799
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#38 Natalia79,190
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#39 Marianna77,344