Laiyah
Feminine
The great love story of the Islamic world is Layla and Majnun, written down by a Persian poet in the twelfth century. Layla is night. Majnun is not a name at all — it means possessed, driven mad — so the man in the title is known only by his condition.
How old is the name Laiyah?
Laiyah first appears in US birth records in 2003 — 22 years ago. The typical Laiyah is a kid of about 9 — this name's wave is very recent. About 700 people named Laiyah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Laiyah most popular?
Laiyah peaked in 2015, reaching #1839 nationally. Today it ranks #10917, 9,078 places below that high. See the whole 2015 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Laiyah
Nizami set down the Layla and Majnun story in Persian verse in the twelfth century, working from older Arabic material about a poet who loved a woman he could not marry and went into the desert reciting about her. It has been retold in Persian, Turkish, Urdu, Azeri and Kurdish ever since, and it is the reason Layla is one of the most given names between Morocco and Bengal. Whether this particular spelling comes from there is not certain. Laiyah could equally be Leah rewritten, or Aaliyah shortened, and the American record does not distinguish. What the spelling itself shows is a small piece of English orthography under strain: English writes this vowel as ai inside a word and ay at the end, and Laiyah uses both at once.
Meaningnot established
Not established
This spelling has no established source. It sits between two families that mean different things: Layla and Laila, from Arabic layl, night, and Leah, from Hebrew, whose own meaning is contested. It is also reached from Aaliyah by dropping the front. Nothing settles which, and the ending -ah is an American addition.
Pronouncing Laiyah
LAY-uh
Two syllables, stress on the first, with the y and the h both silent. ly-EE-ah, with three, is used in some families and is closer to the Arabic Layla than to the spelling.
Nicknames for Laiyah
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
- 2003
- Most girls named
- 2015112 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1839reached in 2015
- Change vs 2024
- −38.5%8 in 2025, from 13
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.
Laiyah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Layla in Arabic — related form
- Leyli in Persian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Georgia, Texas, Florida.
Laiyahs among us
people named Laiyah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 200,908 born in 2025 was named Laiyah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Laiyah
- #10917
- Laiyah on the 2025 chart
- #670
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Laiyah went to 8 girls in 2025, but Laya, Laia and Layah and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 6 spellings went to 301, which makes it the 670th most-given girls’ name of the year — 10,247 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 5,340 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 200,908 for Laiyah 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 Charly test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Laiyah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Charly climbed just as high around 1986, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Charly's path sketches the road Laiyah is walking now.
Laiyah 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
Laiyah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Laiyah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Every sound in it is easy in English, Arabic and Spanish alike.
- It is short, open, and carries clearly across a room.
- The families it sits between are among the most used names in the world.
- Laila, Leila, Layla and Leah are all commoner and all close; the spelling will be given every time.
- There is no documented meaning attached to this spelling in particular.
- The pronunciation is genuinely unsettled between two and three syllables.
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What they receive
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Laiyah
Feminine · #10917 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Laiyahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Laiyah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Laiyah?
- Laiyah is one of 6 recorded spellings. Laya is the more common one — 137 births in 2025 against 8 for Laiyah.
- How popular is the name Laiyah in 2025?
- Laiyah ranks #10917 among US girl names in 2025, with 8 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Laiyah?
- About 1 in every 200,908 US girls born in 2025 was named Laiyah — 8 in all.
- Will my child share the name Laiyah with classmates?
- Laiyah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Laiyah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Edythe#10917 · Tessie#10917 · Drusilla#10917 · Eugenie#10917 · Ivah#10917 · Karri#10917 · Claribel#10917 · Myrtle#10917
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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