Alaila
Feminine · “night”
Layla and Majnun is the great love story of the Islamic world, and Nizami's twelfth-century version is its Romeo and Juliet: a poet driven mad by love for a woman he cannot marry, who ends by wandering in the desert reciting her name.
How old is the name Alaila?
Alaila first appears in US birth records in 1994 — 31 years ago. The typical Alaila is a kid of about 11 — this name's wave is very recent. About 600 people named Alaila are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Alaila most popular?
Alaila peaked in 2020, reaching #3676 nationally. Today it ranks #6838, 3,162 places below that high. See the whole 2020 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From layla to Alaila
Our story of Alaila
The story is older than Nizami: an Umayyad-era poet, Qays, loves Layla, is refused her, and goes mad, which is what Majnun means. Nizami's Persian version of 1188 fixed it, and it was retold across Persian, Turkish, Kurdish, Urdu and Punjabi literature for eight hundred years. Eric Clapton's 1970 song was written after reading it. The name Layla entered English-language naming through that song and rose again in the 2000s, and American respellings and extensions followed: Laila, Leila, Alaila, Laylah. Alaila puts a vowel in front, which either restores the Arabic article or adds an American prefix, and there is no way to tell which a given family intended. Its best year in United States records is 2020, which makes it one of the newest names here.
Meaning
night
Arabic layla, night, and by extension the dark of a woman's hair. The A- at the front of this spelling is either the Arabic definite article al- or a free American prefix; the two are indistinguishable here. The Layla behind it is genuine and its meaning is not in dispute.
How the name formed
- layla
- Layla
- Alaila
Related forms: Layla · Laila · Leyli
Pronouncing Alaila
uh-LAY-luh
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. The Arabic Layla is two syllables with a diphthong in the first, LAY-la, and the added vowel makes this a longer word.
Nicknames for Alaila
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
- 1994
- Most girls named
- 202040 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3676reached in 2020
- Change vs 2024
- −30.4%16 in 2025, from 23
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.
Alaila in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Layla in Arabic — related form
- Laila in English — related form
- Leyli in Persian — related form
Alailas among us
people named Alaila are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 100,454 born in 2025 was named Alaila
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Alaila
- #6838
- Alaila on the 2025 chart
- #852
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Alaila went to 16 girls in 2025, but Alayla, Alaylah and Alailah are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 108, which makes it the 852nd most-given girls’ name of the year — 5,986 places above the chart.
- Alayla64
- Alaylah19
- Alaila16
- Alailah9
About 1 girl in 14,882 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 100,454 for Alaila 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 Cira test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Alaila's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Cira climbed just as high around 1945, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Cira's path sketches the road Alaila is walking now.
Alaila 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
Alaila beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Alaila in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled Arabic meaning and one of the great love stories of world literature nearby.
- Laila is available inside it as a complete and popular name.
- Three open syllables, so it is very easy to say.
- Layla and Laila are both far more common.
- It is very new, so nobody can say how it will age.
- Whether the initial A is the Arabic article or an American prefix is unknowable.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Alaila
Feminine · #6838 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Alailas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Alaila are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Alaila?
- Alaila is one of 4 recorded spellings. Alayla is the more common one — 64 births in 2025 against 16 for Alaila.
- How popular is the name Alaila in 2025?
- Alaila ranks #6838 among US girl names in 2025, with 16 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Alaila?
- About 1 in every 100,454 US girls born in 2025 was named Alaila — 16 in all.
- Will my child share the name Alaila with classmates?
- Alaila will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Alaila
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Malana#6838 · Jeannie#6838 · Maxie#6838 · Nicol#6838 · Chaney#6838 · Keana#6838 · Concetta#6838 · Pheobe#6838
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Alaila? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Alaila and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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