Ilya
Masculine · “my God is the Lord”
Ilya is given to both — 970 boys and 256 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
Ilya is how Russian says Elijah. It is one of the oldest names in continuous Russian use, worn smooth by a thousand years of saying, and it comes into English looking short and unfamiliar while being, underneath, entirely familiar.
How old is the name Ilya?
Ilya first appears in US birth records in 1966 — 59 years ago. The typical Ilya alive today was born around 2012, making them about 13 years old. About 1,000 people named Ilya are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Ilya most popular?
Ilya peaked in 2018, reaching #2617 nationally. Today it ranks #3128, 511 places below that high. See the whole 2018 chart.
Where it comes from
From Eliyahu to Ilya
The story of Ilya
Hebrew Eliyahu became Greek Elias, and Greek is what reached the Slavic world with Orthodox Christianity in the tenth century. Slavic mouths reduced Elias to Iliya and then Ilya, and the prophet's midsummer feast became one of the fixed points of the rural year in Russia and Ukraine. The name is used across Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria and the Balkans, and it arrives in American records with families from all of them.
Meaning
my God is the Lord
From Hebrew Eliyahu, in which the elements for God and for the divine name are set against each other as a declaration.
How the name formed
- Eliyahu
- Elias
- Ilya
Related forms: Илья · Elijah · Ilias · Iliya
Pronouncing Ilya
il-YAH
Two syllables with the stress on the second and a soft l. Americans often say IL-ee-uh.
Nicknames for Ilya
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
- 1966
- Most boys named
- 201848 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2617reached in 2018
- Change vs 2024
- +18.8%38 in 2025, from 32
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.
Ilya in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Илья in Russian — transliteration
- Elijah in English — same name
- Ilias in Greek — same name
- Iliya in Bulgarian — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, New York, Washington.
Ilyas among us
people named Ilya are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 44,949 born in 2025 was named Ilya
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Ilya
- #3128
- Ilya on the 2025 chart
- #824
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Ilya went to 38 boys in 2025, but Ilia and Iliya are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 104, which makes it the 824th most-given boys’ name of the year — 2,304 places above the chart.
- Ilia56
- Ilya38
- Iliya10
About 1 boy in 16,424 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 44,949 for Ilya 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 Deryck test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Ilya's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Deryck climbed just as high around 1965, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Deryck's path sketches the road Ilya is walking now.
Ilya 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 Ilya is headed
Ilya 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.
Ilya beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Ilya in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is the same name as Elijah, so it has a familiar twin in English at all times.
- Four letters, no silent ones, and no difficult consonant for English speakers.
- A documented meaning and more than a thousand years of unbroken Slavic use.
- The stress moves in English, and IL-ee-uh will be as common as il-YAH.
- It is close to Ilia and Iliya on paper, so spelling gets asked for.
- Ilyusha and the other Russian short forms need explaining to anyone outside the family.
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Ilya
Masculine · #3128 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Ilyas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,000 people named Ilya are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Ilya?
- Ilya is one of 3 recorded spellings. Ilia is the more common one — 56 births in 2025 against 38 for Ilya.
- How popular is the name Ilya in 2025?
- Ilya ranks #3128 among US boy names in 2025, with 38 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Ilya?
- About 1 in every 44,949 US boys born in 2025 was named Ilya — 38 in all.
- Will my child share the name Ilya with classmates?
- Ilya will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Ilya
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Hamilton#3128 · Juanpablo#3128 · Courtney#3128 · Baxter#3128 · Javen#3128 · Hal#3128 · Dawud#3128 · Tavion#3128
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Ilya? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Ilya and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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