Crossword Dictionary
ESTELLA
The name Estella is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "star".
Estella is a pretty Latin name that's sounding more and more stylish, remembered as the ward of Miss Haversham in Dickens's Great Expectations. Though Estella ranked as high as Number 110 in the 1880s, it now sits near the bottom of the US Top 1000 along with near-twin Estelle. Either would be well worth considering as an alternative to the popular Stella.
Ali Landry used the Estela spelling for her daughter's name. Estrella is another possibility.
Estelle is a female given name of Occitan origin, and means star.
Saint Estelle was a martyr who purportedly lived in Aquitania in the third century AD, although the earliest references to her date from the Middle Ages. The earliest formats of this Saint's name, Eustella/Eustelle and Eustalia, morphed into Estelle by Provençal poet Frédéric Mistral due to association with Estela (Occitan for star, of which Estelle is essentially a phonetic rendering in French).
Estelle was also promoted via utilization by a number of novelists who wrote in English, most notably Charles Dickens in variant form for the character Estella Havisham in his novel Great Expectations published in August 1861.