Laylah
Feminine · Arabic roots · “night”
Laylah is one spelling of a name that reaches English from Arabic, where layl means night — the same word behind the Hebrew laylah. It carries the story of Layla and Majnun, the doomed lovers of Arabic tradition retold across Persian and Turkish poetry for a thousand years, and it arrived in English-speaking countries again through a rock song in the early 1970s. Two syllables, both open, ending on the soft -ah that Sarah and Hannah share.
How old is the name Laylah?
Laylah first appears in US birth records in 1975 — 50 years ago. The typical Laylah is a kid of about 11 — this name's wave is very recent. About 7,200 people named Laylah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Laylah most popular?
Laylah peaked in 2014, reaching #594 nationally. Today it ranks #1250, 656 places below that high. See the whole 2014 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From layl (Arabic, "night") to Laylah
The story of Laylah
The name belongs to Layla, the beloved in the Arabic tale of Qays and Layla — he was nicknamed Majnun, "possessed", for loving her past all reason. The story circulated in Arabic verse and was shaped into a great Persian narrative poem in the twelfth century, after which it traveled through Turkish, Urdu and Indian retellings and was set to music countless times. English-speaking countries met the name properly in the early 1970s, when a rock song built on that same story put it in wide circulation, and American parents have used it ever since. Laylah is the -ah spelling of that name, alongside Layla, Laila, Leila and Leyla.
Meaning
night
From Arabic layl, "night". The related Hebrew laylah carries the same sense; both go back to a shared Semitic root.
How the name formed
- laylArabic, "night"
- Layla
- Leila
- Layla
- Laylah
Related forms: ليلى (Layla) · Leyla · Leyli · Layla · Leila · Laila
Pronouncing Laylah
LAY-luh
Stress on the first syllable. The spellings Leila and Laila are sometimes said LIE-luh, so Laylah's -ay- actually settles the question faster than those do.
Nicknames for Laylah
High
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
- 1975
- Most girls named
- 2014496 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #594reached in 2014
- Change vs 2024
- −23.8%179 in 2025, from 235
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.
Laylah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- ليلى (Layla) in Arabic — transliteration
- Leyla in Turkish — same name
- Leyli in Persian — related form
- Layla in English — spelling variant
- Leila in English — spelling variant
- Laila in Finnish/Estonian — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Laylahs among us
people named Laylah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 8,979 born in 2025 was named Laylah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Laylah
- #1250
- Laylah on the 2025 chart
- #24
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Laylah went to 179 girls in 2025, but Layla, Laila and Lailah are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 6,403, which makes it the 24th most-given girls’ name of the year — 1,226 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 251 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 8,979 for Laylah 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 Kyle test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Laylah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Kyle climbed just as high around 1951, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Kyle's path sketches the road Laylah is walking now.
Laylah 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 Laylah is headed
Laylah 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.
Laylah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Laylah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The sound is widely familiar in the US from its more common spellings, so almost no one needs it said twice.
- Two syllables, both open, with a clean first-syllable stress — easy to call across a room and easy for a small child to say.
- Recognizable across Arabic, Turkish, Persian and Hebrew-speaking communities, where the word for night sits behind it.
- A documented literary history running back to medieval Arabic and Persian poetry, which few recently popular names can claim.
- Layla is the dominant spelling in the US, so Laylah will be written the shorter way by default and corrected fairly often — a lifetime of "with an h at the end".
- Laila, Leila and Leyla are all in use too. Four rival spellings means forms, teachers and coffee cups will need spelling out.
- The name's wave here is very recent, so most people carrying it are still children; there are few adult Laylahs to grow into.
- Within a single school, a Laylah is unlikely to meet another — though she may well meet a Layla.
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What they receive
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Laylah
Feminine · Arabic roots · #1250 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Laylahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 7,200 people named Laylah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Laylah?
- Laylah is one of 4 recorded spellings. Layla is the more common one — 5,338 births in 2025 against 179 for Laylah.
- How popular is the name Laylah in 2025?
- Laylah ranks #1250 among US girl names in 2025, with 179 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Laylah?
- About 1 in every 8,979 US girls born in 2025 was named Laylah — 179 in all.
- Will my child share the name Laylah with classmates?
- Laylah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Laylah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Adina#1250 · Juno#1250 · Sharon#1250 · Kenia#1250 · Solene#1250 · Navi#1250 · Hayley#1250 · Guadalupe#1248
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Laylah? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Laylah and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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