Daila
Feminine · “beautiful”
Daila is a genuine Latvian name and, in American records, mostly something else. The Latvian word daiļa means beautiful in a particular sense — graceful, well-made — and it is one of the older layers of the language.
How old is the name Daila?
Daila first appears in US birth records in 1997 — 28 years ago. The typical Daila is a kid of about 7 — this name's wave is very recent. About 800 people named Daila are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Daila most popular?
Daila peaked in 2022, reaching #2103 nationally. Today it ranks #3028, 925 places below that high. See the whole 2022 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From daiļa to Daila
The story of Daila
Latvian is one of the two surviving Baltic languages and is unusually conservative — it preserves features that other Indo-European languages lost long ago, which is why linguists pay it a great deal of attention. Its own stock of names includes a set built on plain adjectives: Daila, Skaidrite, Mirdza. Latvian emigration to the United States after the second world war brought some of them here. Separately and far more commonly, Daila appears as a modern American respelling of Dalia and Dayla.
Meaningscholars disagree
beautiful, graceful — in Latvian
Latvian daiļa means beautiful or fair, with a sense closer to well-formed than to striking, and Daila is a documented Latvian woman's name from it. That reading is solid. In American use Daila also functions as a respelling of Dalia, which is Hebrew for a hanging branch, and of Dayla. Which road a given Daila is on is a family fact, and the Latvian one is much the rarer here.
How the name formed
- daiļa
- Daila
Related forms: Daila · Dalia · Dayla
Pronouncing Daila
DY-lah
Two syllables, stress on the first, the opening rhyming with my in Latvian. DAY-lah, with an English long a, is also heard in American use and follows the Dayla reading rather than the Latvian one.
Nicknames for Daila
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
- 1997
- Most girls named
- 202291 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2103reached in 2022
- Change vs 2024
- −32.5%54 in 2025, from 80
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.
Daila in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Daila in Latvian — same name
- Dalia in Hebrew — related form
- Dayla in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, New York.
Dailas among us
people named Daila are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 29,764 born in 2025 was named Daila
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Daila
- #3028
- Daila on the 2025 chart
- #840
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Daila went to 54 girls in 2025, but Dayla and Daylah are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 120, which makes it the 840th most-given girls’ name of the year — 2,188 places above the chart.
- Dayla58
- Daila54
- Daylah8
About 1 girl in 13,394 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 29,764 for Daila 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 Mirta test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Daila's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Mirta climbed just as high around 1956, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Mirta's path sketches the road Daila is walking now.
Daila 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 Daila is headed
Daila looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 57% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low 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.
Daila beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Daila in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A documented Latvian word with a precise and lovely meaning behind it.
- Five letters, nothing silent, and easy for a small child to write.
- Short and clean, which pairs well with a long or complicated surname.
- The two pronunciations belong to two different source names and both circulate.
- Daila, Dayla, Dalia and Daila all appear in American records and get confused.
- Outside Latvian communities the Latvian meaning is entirely unknown.
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What they receive
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Daila
Feminine · #3028 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Dailas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 800 people named Daila are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Daila?
- Daila is one of 3 recorded spellings. Dayla is the more common one — 58 births in 2025 against 54 for Daila.
- How popular is the name Daila in 2025?
- Daila ranks #3028 among US girl names in 2025, with 54 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Daila?
- About 1 in every 29,764 US girls born in 2025 was named Daila — 54 in all.
- Will my child share the name Daila with classmates?
- Daila will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Daila
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Minnie#3028 · Boston#3028 · Joann#3028 · Alethea#3028 · Mallie#3028 · Auria#3028 · Adria#3028 · Aalayah#3028
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Daila? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Daila and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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