Lila

“Variant of Leila — Night” — Arabic origin

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

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. 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.

Around the world: #90 in France (2025).

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

Famous Lilas

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

In stories & tradition

Lila — Peanuts
Lila Crane — Psycho tetralogy
Lila Cheney — Earth-616

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.

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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