Floella

History & Origin

Floella is a blended name, pairing the Florence-derived Flo, from a Latin word for 'flourishing', with the fashionable -ella suffix seen in Luella and Estella. It surfaced among American families in the early twentieth century as part of the taste for pretty, elaborated girl's names.

Never common, it drew only a couple dozen girls a year at its high in the late nineteen-twenties before fading by mid-century. A girl named Floella then would belong to a great-grandmother's generation; the name is best known today through the British television presenter and peer Floella Benjamin.