Aliza
Feminine · Hebrew roots · “joyful”
Aliza is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 11,970 girls against 5 boys since 1880.
Aliza is the Hebrew word for joyful, worn as a name — three open syllables with the stress on the middle one, easy to say and hard to mangle. It arrived in American records through Jewish families and has since been picked up by others who met it as a cousin of Eliza and Alisa. It has stayed on the charts, quietly, ever since.
How old is the name Aliza?
Aliza first appears in US birth records in 1952 — 73 years ago. The typical Aliza alive today was born around 2011, making them about 14 years old. About 12,000 people named Aliza are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Aliza most popular?
Aliza peaked in 2024, reaching #659 nationally. Today it ranks #675, 16 places below that high. See the whole 2024 chart.
Aliza appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From ʿalaz (Hebrew verb, to rejoice) to Aliza
The story of Aliza
The Hebrew adjective aliz, feminine aliza, means merry or joyful, and its root turns up in the Psalms in verbs of rejoicing. As modern Hebrew was revived and everyday words were pressed into service as given names, Aliza became a standard Israeli name and traveled with Jewish families to English-speaking countries. Separately, English speakers arrived at the same spelling from another direction — as a way of writing Alisa, Aleeza or Alyssa, part of the crowded Alice-and-Elissa family. The name has also been taken up widely by Urdu-speaking families in South Asia and the diaspora, where it is usually glossed with the same sense of joy.
Meaningscholars disagree
joyful, merry (Hebrew)
In Hebrew, aliza (עַלִיזָה) is a real adjective meaning cheerful or merry, from the root ʿ-l-z, "to rejoice," which appears in the Hebrew Bible. That reading is solid for the Hebrew name. But the same spelling in English is also used as a variant of Alisa or Alyssa, which run back through Alice to a Germanic root meaning "noble" — so which meaning a given Aliza carries depends on which road her family came by.
How the name formed
- ʿalazHebrew verb, to rejoice
- aliz
- Aliza
Related forms: עַלִיזָה (Alizah) · Aleeza · Alisa · Алиса (Alisa) · Alíz · Eliza
Pronouncing Aliza
ah-LEE-zah
Many American speakers say uh-LEE-zuh, which is the same name with softer vowels. Israeli Hebrew puts the stress on the last syllable: ah-lee-ZAH. All three are heard and none is wrong.
Nicknames for Aliza
High
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
- 1952
- Most girls named
- 2024445 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #659reached in 2024
- Change vs 2024
- −5.6%420 in 2025, from 445
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.
Aliza in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- עַלִיזָה (Alizah) in Hebrew — transliteration
- Aleeza in English — spelling variant
- Alisa in English — related form
- Алиса (Alisa) in Russian — related form
- Alíz in Hungarian — related form
- Eliza in English — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York, Texas, California.
Alizas among us
people named Aliza are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 3,827 born in 2025 was named Aliza
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Aliza
- #675
- Aliza on the 2025 chart
- #394
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Aliza went to 420 girls in 2025, but Alisa, Alizah and Alyza and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 8 spellings went to 754, which makes it the 394th most-given girls’ name of the year — 281 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 2,132 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 3,827 for Aliza 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 Allyssa test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Aliza's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Allyssa climbed just as high around 1998, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Allyssa's path sketches the road Aliza is walking now.
Aliza 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
Where Aliza is headed
Aliza should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Aliza beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Aliza in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled the way it sounds — a listener who hears it can usually write it, once they know it isn't Eliza.
- Two ready-made short forms, Ali and Liza, both of which work as standalone names.
- Travels across Hebrew, English and Urdu-speaking communities without changing shape.
- An unbroken presence in American records over many decades, without ever crowding a classroom.
- Sits comfortably beside the familiar Eliza and Alisa, so it is recognizable on first hearing.
- It lives next door to Eliza, Alisa, Aliyah and Alyssa, so expect a lifetime of gentle corrections — the spelling will need repeating, and people will occasionally default to Eliza.
- Two common pronunciations circulate, ah-LEE-zah and uh-LEE-zuh, plus the Hebrew final-syllable stress. Worth deciding which one your family uses, because she will be introducing herself with it.
- She is unlikely to share the name with a classmate. That means no last-initial problem, and also that the name will need spelling out more often than a Sarah ever would.
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What they receive
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Aliza
Feminine · Hebrew roots · #675 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Alizas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 12,000 people named Aliza are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Aliza?
- Aliza is the most-used spelling in US records — 420 of the 754 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Alisa, Alizah, Alyza, Alyzah, Alysa, Aliyza and Aliyzah.
- How popular is the name Aliza in 2025?
- Aliza ranks #675 among US girl names in 2025, with 420 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Aliza?
- About 1 in every 3,827 US girls born in 2025 was named Aliza — 420 in all.
- Will my child share the name Aliza with classmates?
- Aliza will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Aliza
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lillie#675 · Whitley#675 · Laney#673 · Lakelyn#673 · Amani#678 · Jenna#679 · Yaretzi#670 · Birdie#670
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Aliza? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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