Ileen
Feminine
The e at the front is the letter that marks the Irish spelling, and Ileen has dropped it. What is left is phonetically identical and visually quite different: the name stops looking Irish and starts looking like one of the many American women's names built on a long ee sound.
How old is the name Ileen?
Ileen first appears in US birth records in 1895 — 130 years ago. The typical Ileen alive today was born around 1947, making them about 78 years old. About 1,200 people named Ileen are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Ileen most popular?
Ileen peaked in 1925, reaching #1064 nationally. See the whole 1925 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Eibhlín to Ileen
The story of Ileen
The greatest poem written in Ireland in the eighteenth century was composed by a woman carrying this name in its Irish spelling, over her husband's body. He had been outlawed and shot; she came upon the horse returning without him, followed the blood, and made a lament of several hundred lines that was never written down by her at all — it survived in oral transmission and was taken down from reciters generations later. It is a keen, the formal Irish poetry of grief, and it is furious rather than resigned: she curses the man who killed him by name, and the poem has come down more or less intact because people kept saying it.
Meaningnot established
Not established
The Irish name behind this one was borrowed from Norman French and its own source has been argued over. No secure sense can be traced through the chain, and the spelling here adds nothing that would help.
How the name formed
- Eibhlín
- Eileen
- Ileen
Related forms: Eibhlín
Pronouncing Ileen
eye-LEEN
Two syllables with the weight at the back. The dropped e makes the opening vowel ambiguous, and some readers will try ill-EEN instead.
Nicknames for Ileen
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
- 1895
- Most girls named
- 192551 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1064reached in 1925
- Change vs 2021
- 0.0%6 in 2024, from 6
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.
Ileen in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Eibhlín in Irish — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas.
Ileens among us
people named Ileen are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Ileen sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- The stress at the back gives it a firm finish.
- The sound is soft and easy and nobody struggles with the second half.
- It is far rarer than the standard spelling while sounding almost identical.
- Eileen and Aileen are both standard and this spelling gets corrected.
- The opening vowel is genuinely ambiguous without the leading e.
- The generation that used it is now elderly.
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Ileen
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Ileens are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,200 people named Ileen are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Ileen in 2025?
- Ileen is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Ileen with classmates?
- Ileen will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More I names
The most-given names starting with I, all years combined.
Isabella#7 · Irene#651 · Ida#1120 · Isabel#176 · Isabelle#166 · Iris#61 · Ivy#39 · Irma#3167
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Ileen? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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