Akilah
Feminine · “Arabic aqila”
Aql is the Arabic word for reason, and in Islamic law it is not a compliment but a threshold. A person who has aql is legally accountable; a person who does not, through youth or illness, is not. Akilah names the faculty that makes someone responsible.
How old is the name Akilah?
Akilah first appears in US birth records in 1972 — 53 years ago. The typical Akilah alive today was born around 1994, making them about 31 years old. About 2,900 people named Akilah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Akilah most popular?
Akilah peaked in 1978, reaching #1299 nationally. Today it ranks #9457, 8,158 places below that high. See the whole 1978 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From aql to Akilah
The story of Akilah
Aql is one of the load-bearing terms of Islamic thought and it works in several registers at once. Its root sense is to tie or hobble, and the intellect is named for restraint: what holds a person back from acting foolishly. In law, aql together with bulugh, physical maturity, establishes taklif, the state of being legally accountable for one's actions, so a child or a person who has lost the faculty is not liable in the same way. In philosophy, aql translates the Greek nous, and the Muslim Aristotelians built an entire cosmology of separate intellects on it. In everyday speech aqil simply means sensible. The name therefore carries a technical legal term, a philosophical one and an ordinary compliment, and which is meant depends entirely on who is listening.
Meaning
Arabic aqila, intelligent or reasoning
Akilah is a transliteration of Arabic aqila, the feminine of aqil, one who possesses aql, reason or intellect. The root sense of aql is to tie or restrain, as one tethers a camel, and the faculty is understood as what restrains a person from folly. The initial letter is the Arabic qaf, made far back in the throat, which English writes as k or q. The American peak is 1978.
How the name formed
- aql
- aqila
- Akilah
Related forms: Aqila · Akila · Aqeela
Pronouncing Akilah
ah-KEE-lah
Three syllables, stress on the second. The first consonant of the Arabic is a qaf, made at the back of the throat, which English has no letter for and writes as k.
Nicknames for Akilah
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1972
- Most girls named
- 1993115 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1299reached in 1978
- Change vs 2024
- −23.1%10 in 2025, from 13
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Akilah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Aqila in Arabic — same name
- Akila in English — spelling variant
- Aqeela in Urdu — same name
Akilahs among us
people named Akilah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 160,727 born in 2025 was named Akilah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Akilah
- #9457
- Akilah on the 2025 chart
- #928
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Akilah went to 10 girls in 2025, but Akila and Akyla are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 32, which makes it the 928th most-given girls’ name of the year — 8,529 places above the chart.
- Akila12
- Akilah10
- Akyla10
About 1 girl in 50,227 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 160,727 for Akilah itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Sari test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Akilah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Sari climbed just as high around 1956, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Sari's path sketches the road Akilah is walking now.
Akilah sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Akilah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Akilah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is clear and carries real intellectual weight.
- Three syllables with clear middle stress.
- Every sound in the English form is straightforward.
- Aqila and Aqeela are the more accurate transliterations.
- The qaf sound does not exist in English.
- The final h is silent.
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Akilah
Feminine · #9457 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Akilahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,900 people named Akilah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Akilah?
- Akilah is one of 3 recorded spellings. Akila is the more common one — 12 births in 2025 against 10 for Akilah.
- How popular is the name Akilah in 2025?
- Akilah ranks #9457 among US girl names in 2025, with 10 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Akilah?
- About 1 in every 160,727 US girls born in 2025 was named Akilah — 10 in all.
- Will my child share the name Akilah with classmates?
- Akilah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Akilah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Leta#9457 · Inga#9457 · Delphia#9457 · Cammie#9457 · Lisandra#9457 · Amee#9457 · Venecia#9457 · Annetta#9457
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Akilah? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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