Ella ranks at #101 with 976 entries and is the quiet sibling of Bella in the pet-name pool. Same final two syllables, same soft phonetic register, same concentration on small companion breeds. The difference is texture: Bella reads as the pretty one, Ella reads as the elegant one.
The Bella-Ella-Stella cluster
Three names share the -ella ending in the female pet top 200, and they are functionally interchangeable from a phonetic standpoint. Owners pick between them based on small register differences. Stella reads as theatrical, Bella as pretty, Ella as understated. The name distribution across breeds is similar across all three, with small dogs and cats dominating. Compare with the Yorkshire Terrier leaderboard for context.
One counter-reading: Ella is also short for Eleanor, Elena, and several other longer names. Some owners pick it as a standalone, others pick it expecting to formally register the dog as Eleanor or Elizabeth. That ambiguity is unusual at this rank.
The Ella Fitzgerald inheritance
Most owners under forty are unlikely to credit Ella Fitzgerald as the cultural source, but the singer's century-long shadow gave the name an early-20th-century elegance that survives in the texture even when the source is invisible. The same dissolution pattern shaped Oscar and Bella.
The human Ella has been a top-20 SSA baby name for over a decade. The baby name page shows the trajectory. The pet version is climbing in step.