Deliah
Feminine · “of Delos (Greek)”
Deliah's best year on record is 1883, the first year American records exist, which places it firmly in the nineteenth century. That matters for the spelling: the h on the end is not a modern flourish here. In Victorian America a final h was a biblical marker, the same one that gives Sarah, Hannah, Rebekah and Deborah.
How old is the name Deliah?
Deliah first appears in US birth records in 1883 — 142 years ago. The typical Deliah alive today was born around 1993, making them about 32 years old. About 1,100 people named Deliah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Deliah most popular?
Deliah peaked in 1883, reaching #817 nationally. Today it ranks #6325, 5,508 places below that high. See the whole 1883 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Delos to Deliah
The story of Deliah
Delia entered English through Renaissance and pastoral poetry, where classical epithets were used as names for the beloved, and it was a standard poetic name by the seventeenth century. Delilah came through the Bible on a very different route and carried a warning with it. In American records of the 1880s the two are already tangled, and Deliah is one of the spellings that sits between them: the -iah ending is the Old Testament shape, seen in Josiah, Obadiah and Jeremiah, while the body of the word is the Greek. This kind of blending was ordinary in a period when many families wrote names from hearing rather than from books, and Deliah has been rare ever since.
Meaningscholars disagree
of Delos (Greek), or delicate one (Hebrew reading)
Two names collapse into this spelling. Delia is a Greek epithet of Artemis, who was born on the island of Delos. Delilah is Hebrew, from Judges 16, usually read as delicate or as one who weakens, from a root meaning to be weak or to hang down. Deliah is written as if it were the first and pronounced as if it were the second in some families and the reverse in others, and nineteenth-century records show both.
How the name formed
- Delos
- Delia
- Deliah
Related forms: Delia · Delia · Delilah · Delia
Pronouncing Deliah
duh-LY-uh
Three syllables, stress in the middle, with a long i. Spanish and Italian speakers say DEH-lee-ah with the stress at the front, which is the older European reading.
Nicknames for Deliah
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
- 1883
- Most girls named
- 201430 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #817reached in 1883
- Change vs 2023
- −37.9%18 in 2025, from 29
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.
Deliah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Delia in Italian — same name
- Delia in Spanish — same name
- Delilah in Hebrew — related form
- Delia in Romanian — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: Florida.
Deliahs among us
people named Deliah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 89,293 born in 2025 was named Deliah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Deliah
- #6325
- Deliah on the 2025 chart
- #798
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Deliah went to 18 girls in 2025, but Delia and Deliyah are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 162, which makes it the 798th most-given girls’ name of the year — 5,527 places above the chart.
- Delia135
- Deliah18
- Deliyah9
About 1 girl in 9,921 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 89,293 for Deliah 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
Fashion outlook
Deliah 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
Deliah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Deliah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A genuinely nineteenth-century name rather than a modern respelling, which the final h supports.
- Connects to both a classical epithet and a biblical figure, so it can be read either way.
- Very rare today while remaining completely easy to say.
- Delia and Delilah are both far more common and will be assumed.
- The Delilah association carries a moral judgment for some readers of the Bible.
- Two pronunciations compete, one Greek and front-stressed, one English and middle-stressed.
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Deliah
Feminine · #6325 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Deliahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,100 people named Deliah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Deliah?
- Deliah is one of 3 recorded spellings. Delia is the more common one — 135 births in 2025 against 18 for Deliah.
- How popular is the name Deliah in 2025?
- Deliah ranks #6325 among US girl names in 2025, with 18 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Deliah?
- About 1 in every 89,293 US girls born in 2025 was named Deliah — 18 in all.
- Will my child share the name Deliah with classmates?
- Deliah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Deliah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Kaye#6325 · Doria#6325 · Karolyn#6325 · Rosaleen#6325 · Roni#6325 · Darian#6325 · Svetlana#6325 · Fanny#6325
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Deliah? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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