Candela
Latin for "candle": Candela came to Poland through Spanish. It stays vanishingly rare, carried by only a few dozen women and given to no newborn in recent memory, so most Poles have never met one.
Candela Pronunciation
Candela is pronounced tsahn-DE-lah (/t͡sanˈdɛla/).
What Candela means
Where Candela comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Candela is Spanish, and it comes straight from the Latin candela, a candle. Spanish kept the word almost unchanged. Today candela still names the wax candle you light at home.
The name attaches to the Virgen de la Candelaria, honoured on the second of February at Candlemas. On that feast Spanish churches bless candles, so a woman named Candela shares her name-day with that light. In the Canary Islands the Virgen de la Candelaria is the patron saint, and the name has a real address on the map.
There is a second candela worth knowing. In physics the candela is the SI unit of luminous intensity, defined by international agreement and once gauged against a burning flame. A Polish teacher reading the class register meets the same Latin root in a science lesson and in a girl's name. The meaning stays plain: świeca, a candle.
How many people are named Candela
1 in 500974 women in Poland is named Candela. 45 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #5684 among female names.
Candela as a middle name
Candela is a first name for 45 women in Poland and a middle name for another 10, an 82/18 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 2379th, between Brunona (10) and Catharine (10).
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#2377 Bruna10
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#2378 Brunona10
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#2379 Candela10
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#2380 Catharine10
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#2381 Cemre10