Jamillah
Feminine · “beautiful”
Jamillah writes an Arabic ending with an English letter that has nothing to do it. The h at the end represents a letter of the Arabic alphabet that marks a feminine noun — it is silent in most contexts and pronounced in others — and English transliteration has never decided whether to write it or not.
How old is the name Jamillah?
Jamillah first appears in US birth records in 1969 — 56 years ago. The typical Jamillah alive today was born around 1982, making them about 43 years old. About 1,000 people named Jamillah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Jamillah most popular?
Jamillah peaked in 1975, reaching #1625 nationally. See the whole 1975 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From an Arabic root of three consonants meaning beauty to Jamillah
The story of Jamillah
Djamila Bouhired was twenty-two when she was arrested in Algiers, tortured and sentenced to death for planting a bomb during the war of independence. Her lawyer turned the trial into an international campaign — pamphlets, petitions, a film — and the sentence was commuted; she was released when the war ended and lived to see the country she had fought for become something she was willing to criticize publicly. Across the Arab world her name became a byword for a particular kind of courage in the 1950s and 1960s, and a good many girls were named after her.
Meaning
beautiful
The Arabic adjective is straightforward and belongs to a very large family of words built on the same three consonants, which is how Arabic works: a root of consonants carries the meaning and the vowels between them do the grammar. The final letter is the marker that makes the adjective feminine. Transliterating it into English is a choice rather than a rule, which is why the record carries Jamila, Jamilah, Jamillah and Jamela, all of them equally correct and none of them the original.
How the name formed
- an Arabic root of three consonants meaning beauty
- the feminine marker closes the adjective
- English transliteration cannot settle on a spelling
- an Algerian fighter makes the name famous in the 1950s
- Jamillah appears in American records from the late 1960s
Related forms: Jamila · Cemile · Jamila
Pronouncing Jamillah
juh-MEE-luh
Three syllables with the weight in the middle. The final h is not sounded in English at all, and in Arabic it is heard only when the word is followed by certain grammatical endings.
Nicknames for Jamillah
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
- 1969
- Most girls named
- 197560 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1625reached in 1975
- Change vs 2021
- 0.0%5 in 2023, from 5
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.
Jamillah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Jamila in Arabic — same name
- Cemile in Turkish — same name
- Jamila in Swahili — same name
Jamillahs among us
people named Jamillah 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
Jamillah 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 meaning is clear, favorable and completely uncontroversial.
- It is recognized across the Arabic-speaking world, in Turkey and in East Africa.
- Milla is available as a short form and is thoroughly current in Europe.
- There are at least four accepted English spellings and she will be given all of them.
- The doubled l and the final h are both English decisions rather than Arabic ones.
- The name is closely dated to the 1970s in the American record.
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Jamillah
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Jamillahs 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 Jamillah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Jamillah in 2025?
- Jamillah is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Jamillah with classmates?
- Jamillah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More J names
The most-given names starting with J, all years combined.
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Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Jamillah? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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