Gila
Feminine · “Hebrew gilah”
The Gila River gave its name to a lizard, a wilderness and a county, and nobody is sure what the word itself means. It was written down by Spanish speakers listening to languages they did not speak, and the original has not been recovered.
How old is the name Gila?
Gila first appears in US birth records in 1920 — 105 years ago. The typical Gila alive today was born around 1992, making them about 33 years old. About 600 people named Gila are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Gila most popular?
Gila peaked in 1935, reaching #3431 nationally. Today it ranks #10107, 6,676 places below that high. See the whole 1935 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From gilah to Gila
The story of Gila
Spanish expeditions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries recorded place names from Yuman, O'odham and other languages by ear, without dictionaries and often through several interpreters, and the results were then copied from map to map for three hundred years. Gila is one of them. Proposed sources include Yuma and Spanish words, and none has been established; the honest position is that the river's name has been detached from whatever it originally was. That is the situation for a great many American place names, and it is worth distinguishing from the different problem of invented meanings, because here nobody is inventing anything, the record simply does not go back far enough. The Hebrew Gila, meaning joy, is a separate modern name that happens to match the spelling.
Meaningscholars disagree
Hebrew gilah, joy
Gila is a modern Hebrew name meaning joy, from a root meaning to rejoice. It is separately the name of a river in Arizona and New Mexico, a Spanish rendering of an indigenous word whose source language and meaning are both disputed. The two are unrelated. The American peak is 1935.
How the name formed
- gilah
- Gila
Related forms: Gila · Gilah
Pronouncing Gila
GEE-lah
Two syllables, stress on the first, with a hard g in Hebrew. The Arizona river is said HEE-lah, following Spanish, which is a different word entirely.
Nicknames for Gila
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
- 1920
- Most girls named
- 197316 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3431reached in 1935
- Change vs 2024
- 0.0%9 in 2025, from 9
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.
Gila in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Gila in Hebrew — same name
- Gilah in Hebrew — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York.
Gilas among us
people named Gila are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 178,585 born in 2025 was named Gila
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Raphaela test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Gila's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Raphaela climbed just as high around 1915, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Raphaela's path sketches the road Gila is walking now.
Gila 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
Gila beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Gila in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Four letters and two syllables, short in either language.
- The Hebrew meaning is documented and entirely positive.
- It is an ordinary current name in Israel.
- The river and the lizard are said with an h and are widely known in the Southwest.
- Two pronunciations of the initial letter are in use.
- It is unfamiliar to most American readers.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Gila
Feminine · #10107 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Gilas 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 Gila are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Gila in 2025?
- Gila ranks #10107 among US girl names in 2025, with 9 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Gila?
- About 1 in every 178,585 US girls born in 2025 was named Gila — 9 in all.
- Will my child share the name Gila with classmates?
- Gila will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Gila
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Berta#10107 · Jettie#10107 · Maye#10107 · Osa#10107 · Fidelia#10107 · Alysa#10107 · Su#10107 · Willie#10107
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Gila? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Gila and another name?
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Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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