Ilyas
Masculine · “my God is Yahweh”
Ilyas is the Arabic form of a name carried by one of the oldest prophets in the Hebrew Bible, and it is named as a prophet in the Quran as well — the same figure, reached by a different road. In the mouth it is two clean beats with the weight on the second, and it belongs equally to families in Morocco, Turkey, Pakistan, Bosnia and Kazakhstan. In American records it is a recent arrival that keeps gaining ground.
How old is the name Ilyas?
Ilyas first appears in US birth records in 1976 — 49 years ago. The typical Ilyas is a kid of about 8 — this name's wave is very recent. About 2,200 people named Ilyas are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Ilyas most popular?
Ilyas peaked in 2025, reaching #1075 nationally. Today it ranks #1075, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Eliyyahu to Ilyas
The story of Ilyas
The name begins as Hebrew Eliyyahu, borne by the prophet whose confrontations with the kings of Israel fill the Books of Kings. Greek translators of the Hebrew scriptures rendered it Elias, and that form traveled through Latin and into most of Christian Europe. In Arabic it became Ilyas, and the Quran names Ilyas among the prophets — which carried the name into Turkish, Persian, Urdu, Malay, Bosnian, Somali and the Turkic languages of Central Asia. So one name from the ancient Levant now has two large families of descendants, and Ilyas sits squarely in one of them while remaining audibly related to the other.
Meaning
my God is Yahweh
From the Hebrew Eliyyahu, built from 'eli' (my God) and the divine name. Ilyas is the Arabic route to that same name; Elijah and Elias are the English and Greek routes.
How the name formed
- Eliyyahu
- Elias
- Ilyas
Related forms: إلياس (Ilyas) · İlyas · Elyas · Elias · Elijah · Ilya
Pronouncing Ilyas
il-YAHSS
Stress on the second syllable in Arabic, Urdu and most usage; Turkish İlyas is often heard closer to EEL-yas. English speakers meeting it in writing sometimes try ILL-ee-us, so one correction is usually enough.
Nicknames for Ilyas
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
- 1976
- Most boys named
- 2025200 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1075reached in 2025
- Change vs 2024
- +26.6%200 in 2025, from 158
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.
Ilyas in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- إلياس (Ilyas) in Arabic — same name
- İlyas in Turkish — spelling variant
- Elyas in Persian — spelling variant
- Elias in Greek — same name
- Elijah in English — same name
- Ilya in Russian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York, California, Minnesota.
Ilyass among us
people named Ilyas are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 8,540 born in 2025 was named Ilyas
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Ilyas
- #1075
- Ilyas on the 2025 chart
- #667
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Ilyas went to 200 boys in 2025, but Ilias and Ilyaas are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 271, which makes it the 667th most-given boys’ name of the year — 408 places above the chart.
- Ilyas200
- Ilias60
- Ilyaas11
About 1 boy in 6,303 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 8,540 for Ilyas 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 Blayne test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Ilyas's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Blayne climbed just as high around 2000, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Blayne's path sketches the road Ilyas is walking now.
Ilyas is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Ilyas is headed
Ilyas looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 19% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
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.
Ilyas beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Ilyas in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Works unchanged across Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Urdu, Malay and Bosnian — one spelling that a great many communities already read at sight.
- Audibly related to Elijah and Elias, so English speakers place it immediately even when they have not seen it before.
- Two syllables, five letters, no silent letters — short to write and phonetically regular once heard.
- A documented line running from the Hebrew scriptures through Greek and Arabic, unbroken for well over two thousand years.
- Several spellings circulate in English — Ilyas, Ilias, Elyas, Ilyass — so expect to spell it aloud, and expect the occasional letter to land wrong on forms.
- People who read it before hearing it often reach for ILL-ee-us or slide it into Elias. The correction is small, but it will be made often.
- In an American classroom he is likely to be the only Ilyas, which cuts both ways: no last-initial, and also no one who already knows how to say it.
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What they receive
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Ilyas
Masculine · #1075 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Ilyass are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,200 people named Ilyas are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Ilyas?
- Ilyas is the most-used spelling in US records — 200 of the 271 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Ilias and Ilyaas.
- How popular is the name Ilyas in 2025?
- Ilyas ranks #1075 among US boy names in 2025, with 200 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Ilyas?
- About 1 in every 8,540 US boys born in 2025 was named Ilyas — 200 in all.
- Will my child share the name Ilyas with classmates?
- Ilyas will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Ilyas
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Kiyan#1075 · Sunny#1075 · Osiris#1075 · Tzvi#1075 · Vance#1075 · Ramiro#1073 · Gary#1073 · Edmund#1081
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Ilyas? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Ilyas and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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