Gabriela
From Hebrew, carrying the sense "God is my strength". Around 136,000 Polish women answer to it, and the count of newborns has held steady, so it stays among the names you'll almost surely recognize.
Gabriela Pronunciation
Gabriela is pronounced gahbr-YE-lah (/gabrˈjɛla/).
What Gabriela means
Where Gabriela comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Gabriela grows from the Hebrew Gavri'el, which pairs gever, a word for man and for strength, with El, one of the old names of God. The reading passed down is "god is my strength." The masculine Gabriel belonged to the archangel who brings word to Daniel and later to Mary, and Gabriela is the feminine cut from that root.
In Poland the name spread only in the nineteenth century, and it lives now in its shorter shapes. Gabrysia is the everyday one. On a school register the full Gabriela stands in one column while the teacher calls out Gabrysia. The variant Gabrielle travels through French and English, the same name in another coat.
The name makes a plain claim: the strength named in it belongs to God rather than to the woman who answers to it. Those who carry it keep their imieniny most often on the nineteenth of December, and again on the twenty-fourth of March beside Gabriel. The Hebrew root still reads the same, god is my strength.
When Gabriela celebrates name day
Gabriela appears 5 times in the Polish name day calendar, never as a main name. The first of these dates is 8 February.
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 Gabriela
1 in 166 women in Poland is named Gabriela. 135,956 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #104 among female names.
Gabriela's popularity over time
1,745 girls were given the name in 2025, ranking #47 among newborns. It has been falling steadily since 2000.
Where parents choose Gabriela
Gabriela is most popular in Greater Poland, 58% above the national average (2,411 girls born 2019–2025), followed by Podlaskie (+41%) and Masovian (+23%). It is least common in Silesian and Opole, 61% and 58% below average respectively.
-
Greater Poland
+58%1 in 89 babies
-
Podlaskie
+41%1 in 100 babies
-
Masovian
+23%1 in 115 babies
-
Silesian
−61%1 in 361 babies
-
Opole
−58%1 in 336 babies
-
Pomeranian
−34%1 in 214 babies
-
Greater Poland+58% 2,411 born1 in 89 babies+58%
-
Podlaskie+41% 657 born1 in 100 babies+41%
-
Masovian+23% 3,086 born1 in 115 babies+23%
-
Holy Cross+17% 459 born1 in 121 babies+17%
-
Warmian-Masurian+15% 584 born1 in 123 babies+15%
-
Kuyavian-Pomeranian+14% 885 born1 in 124 babies+14%
-
Lublin+9% 789 born1 in 130 babies+9%
-
Lesser Poland+8% 1,730 born1 in 131 babies+8%
-
Lubusz−1% 346 born1 in 144 babies−1%
-
West Pomeranian−7% 557 born1 in 152 babies−7%
-
Łódź−14% 774 born1 in 164 babies−14%
-
Subcarpathian−18% 696 born1 in 173 babies−18%
-
Lower Silesian−23% 854 born1 in 184 babies−23%
-
Pomeranian−34% 687 born1 in 214 babies−34%
-
Opole−58% 137 born1 in 336 babies−58%
-
Silesian−61% 630 born1 in 361 babies−61%
Gabriela as a middle name
Gabriela is a first name for 135,956 women in Poland and a middle name for another 43,767, a 76/24 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 53rd, between Zuzanna (45,292) and Stefania (42,168).
-
#51 Dominika48,283
-
#52 Zuzanna45,292
-
#53 Gabriela43,767
-
#54 Stefania42,168
-
#55 Marzena41,980