Meaning and background
The story behind Darla
Darla was formed as a variant of Darlene with a different ending. Darlene itself comes from the English word darling plus a name suffix, so the affectionate association has a documented route rather than an invented ancient translation. Darla shortens the rhythm to two syllables, beginning with the stressed DAR sound. For a dog, it offers a personal-name form of an endearment. That can express how the owner feels without making an unsupported statement that the dog will always behave sweetly.
- Origin
- English variant of Darlene using the ending la. Source
- Meaning
- Through Darlene, the name is connected with the English endearment darling. Source · Source 2
- Pronunciation
- British English /ˈdɑː.lə/. Source
Try Darla out loud
Everyday moments“Darla, come here!”
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About Darla
Recorded as a dog’s name
Darla appears in 34 dog licence records in the 2026 New York City dataset.
How to read this count
These records cover New York City and may count the same dog in more than one licence period. They are not a national popularity ranking.
Pronunciation and rhythm
/dɑɹlə/
US English sound sequence, converted from the CMU dictionary. Stress marks are shown separately.
Stress on the first syllable in the recorded US readings.
View dictionary notation
/dɑɹlə/ · primary stress on syllable 1D AA1 R L AH0
These are US dictionary readings. Personal, regional and other language pronunciations may differ.
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Sources and research notes (2)
Gender association: NYC licence-period records. Any dog can use this name.
- New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene NYC Dog Licensing Dataset — extract_year 2026 — Dog licence periods, not unique dogs; NYC only. No owner-level fields retrieved.
- Carnegie Mellon University / CMU Sphinx maintainers CMU US English Pronouncing Dictionary — US English dictionary readings; not owner-specific or exhaustive multilingual pronunciation
References support the individual facts shown. A source link does not mean the entire profile has been verified.