American invented name, possibly a feminized elaboration of the place name Ozark or a blend with -ella.
Ozella is a name that grew largely from the African American naming tradition of the American South in the post-Reconstruction era, representing the rich creative independence with which Black families constructed names that were distinctly their own — beyond the inherited lexicon of European saints and classical figures. It appears most frequently in census records from the 1880s through the 1930s, concentrated in the Deep South, and likely developed as a feminine elaboration built on the suffix '-ella' (itself fashionable in that era: Ella, Bella, Stella, Rozella) attached to a root that may echo 'Oz,' a Hebrew element meaning strength or might, or may simply reflect the melodic invention that characterized much Southern naming of the period.
The name sits in a cluster of rare, handcrafted American originals — names like Ozella, Ozelle, and Ozelda — that were created, used, and beloved within specific communities and then drifted into obscurity as naming fashions centralized through the twentieth century. There is no famous Ozella to point to, no saint or queen or literary character — just real women who bore it through real lives, which is its own kind of dignity. The contemporary interest in recovering these lost names, driven partly by genealogical research and partly by a renewed appreciation for the creativity of African American naming, has given Ozella a second look. It sounds melodious, distinctive, and genuinely American — a name that belongs to no one tradition and therefore to a very specific one.