Lila

Meaning: Night
Origin: Variant of Leila (from Arabic)

Girl's name · #187 in the US (2025) · Comeback

Popularity over time

Lila was #170 in 1930, slipped to #1500 by 1993, and has climbed back to #187 today. Roughly 76,000 girls have been named Lila since 1880. In all that time it has never once missed a year of the national records.

Across the states

See where Lila is more common.

Appears in 2020-2025 birth records of 49 states. See the full state-by-state map on this page.

Around the world

See how Lila ranks in other countries and regions.

#90 in France (2025) · #102 in Poland (2025) · #136 in N. Ireland (2025) · #143 in New Zealand (2025) · #179 in England & Wales (2025) · #217 in Belgium (2025) · #221 in Slovenia (2025) · #222 in Scotland (2025) · #284 in Ireland (2025) · #334 in Switzerland (2025) · #428 in Netherlands (2025) · #885 in Sweden (2025) and 3 more.

Famous Lilas

Lila Downs — Mexican American singer-songwriter
Lila Tretikov — Russian–American engineer, manager and former executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation
Lila Kedrova — French actor (1909–2000)
Lila Lee — Prominent screen actress of the silent film era (1901–1973)
Lila Abu-Lughod — Palestinian-American anthropologist

In stories & tradition

Lila^it — Peanuts (comics)
Lila Crane — Psycho tetralogy (film series)
Lila Cheney — Marvel Comics

What Lilas become

Among 215 notable people named Lila:

Entertainers appear 2.07× more often than among typical names — e.g. Lila Downs, Mexican American singer-songwriter.

Spellings & nicknames

Together with its spelling variants Lyla (#80), Lilah (#179), and Lylah (#585), Lila would rank around #16 with about 7,000 births last year — the newborns split about 44/25/24/7 across Lyla, Lilah, Lila, and Lylah.

Similar names: Leila · Gracie · Lilly · Nyla · Aliyah · Ayla

Browse more girl names — popularity, trends and eras for 5,700+ American names, free.

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