Baila
Feminine · “most often read as "beautiful”
Baila is the English spelling of a Yiddish name that Ashkenazi families have carried for centuries — Beyle in the old spelling, softened in American records to Baila, Bayla, Beila. Two open vowels and a light ending, said in two beats. In Spanish it is also a everyday word, the command form of bailar, to dance.
How old is the name Baila?
Baila first appears in US birth records in 1955 — 70 years ago. The typical Baila alive today was born around 2012, making them about 13 years old. About 3,400 people named Baila are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Baila most popular?
Baila peaked in 2024, reaching #1420 nationally. Today it ranks #1467, 47 places below that high. See the whole 2024 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Beyle to Baila
The story of Baila
The name belongs to the old stock of Yiddish women's names, written בײלע and used in Jewish communities across central and eastern Europe from the medieval period onward — the same family of names as Gitl, Frayde and Sheyne, given in Yiddish rather than Hebrew. Its diminutive, Beilke, is the name of Tevye's youngest daughter in Sholem Aleichem's stories, written at the end of the nineteenth century. Emigration brought the name to America along with the communities that used it, and the transliteration settled into several rival spellings, Baila among them. It remains in active use, concentrated in the Orthodox communities of New York and New Jersey, where Yiddish given names never went out of circulation.
Meaningscholars disagree
most often read as "beautiful"
The main reading traces Yiddish Beyle to the Romance word for beautiful — the same root behind Bella — carried into Ashkenazi naming from western Europe. A competing reading links it to the Slavic root for "white" or "fair". Both are argued seriously by scholars of Yiddish names, and neither has won.
How the name formed
- Beyle
- Beile
- Bayla
- Baila
Related forms: בײלע (Beyle) · Bayla · Beila · Bajla · Bella
Pronouncing Baila
BYE-lah
BYE-lah is the usual American pronunciation. Families closer to Yiddish speech often say BAY-leh, matching the older spelling Beyle. Spanish speakers reading the word cold will say BYE-lah too, since it matches the verb form.
Nicknames for Baila
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
- 1955
- Most girls named
- 2024157 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1420reached in 2024
- Change vs 2024
- −7.0%146 in 2025, from 157
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.
Baila in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- בײלע (Beyle) in Yiddish — transliteration
- Bayla in English (US) — spelling variant
- Beila in English (US) — spelling variant
- Bajla in Polish records — spelling variant
- Bella in Italian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York, New Jersey.
Bailas among us
people named Baila are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 11,009 born in 2025 was named Baila
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Baila
- #1467
- Baila on the 2025 chart
- #754
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Baila went to 146 girls in 2025, but Bayla and Baylah are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 207, which makes it the 754th most-given girls’ name of the year — 713 places above the chart.
- Baila146
- Bayla51
- Baylah10
About 1 girl in 7,765 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 11,009 for Baila 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 Stevi test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Baila's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Stevi climbed just as high around 1986, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Stevi's path sketches the road Baila is walking now.
Baila 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 Baila is headed
Baila should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium 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.
Baila beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Baila in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled as it sounds for most American readers — two syllables, no silent letters, nothing to decode.
- A documented history in Yiddish going back centuries, with an unbroken line of use rather than a recent invention.
- Comes with a long-established diminutive, Beilke, and works with the plain English short form Bay.
- Rare enough that a child is unlikely to share it in a classroom, while remaining a real, recognized name within Jewish communities.
- It shares a sound-space with Bailey and Bella, so expect a lifetime of gentle corrections — people will reach for the name they already know.
- The transliteration is not fixed. Baila, Bayla and Beila all exist, so the spelling will need saying aloud letter by letter fairly often.
- In Spanish, baila means "dance" as a command. That earns friendly remarks more than confusion, but it is worth knowing before you choose.
- Outside the New York and New Jersey communities where it is most concentrated, most people will be meeting the name for the first time.
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What they receive
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Baila
Feminine · #1467 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Bailas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,400 people named Baila are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Baila?
- Baila is the most-used spelling in US records — 146 of the 207 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Bayla and Baylah.
- How popular is the name Baila in 2025?
- Baila ranks #1467 among US girl names in 2025, with 146 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Baila?
- About 1 in every 11,009 US girls born in 2025 was named Baila — 146 in all.
- Will my child share the name Baila with classmates?
- Baila will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Baila
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Louella#1467 · Delani#1467 · Ellowyn#1467 · Zia#1467 · Iqra#1467 · Roselynn#1467 · Joey#1467 · Jayde#1467
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Baila? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Baila and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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