Leaha
Feminine · “weary”
Jacob worked seven years for Rachel and was given her elder sister instead, and only found out in the morning. Leah is the woman in that story — the one nobody asked. She had six of his sons, and when he died it was beside her, not Rachel, that he was buried.
How old is the name Leaha?
Leaha first appears in US birth records in 1949 — 76 years ago. The typical Leaha alive today was born around 1990, making them about 35 years old. About 600 people named Leaha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Leaha most popular?
Leaha peaked in 1981, reaching #3859 nationally. Today it ranks #10917, 7,058 places below that high. See the whole 1981 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Leah to Leaha
The story of Leaha
The Genesis account is unusually blunt about Leah's position: it says she was unloved, and it names her sons in a sequence that reads as a woman hoping each birth will change that. It does not change. What the text does instead is quieter and stranger — the tribes descend mostly from her children rather than from Rachel's, and Jacob's own burial instructions place him next to Leah in the cave at Machpelah. The name went into Christian Europe with the rest of Genesis and into wide English use after the Reformation. Leaha is an American respelling that adds a silent vowel to a two-letter word ending, which is a habit English applies to short names it thinks look unfinished.
Meaningscholars disagree
weary — or, in the other reading, wild cow
Two readings compete and both are serious. Hebrew la'ah means to be weary, which fits a folk etymology attached to the story. Akkadian littu means a cow, and cattle names for women are ordinary in that world; Rachel means ewe, which supports the pairing. Neither has been established.
How the name formed
- Leah
- Leaha
Related forms: Lea · Lia · Lea
Pronouncing Leaha
LEE-uh
Two syllables, stress on the first. LAY-uh is the German and Hebrew saying and is heard here too. The final a in this spelling is not pronounced separately; it does not add a syllable.
Nicknames for Leaha
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
- 1949
- Most girls named
- 199026 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3859reached in 1981
- Change vs 2013
- −20.0%8 in 2025, from 10
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.
Leaha in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Lea in Hebrew — same name
- Lia in Italian — same name
- Lea in German — same name
Leahas among us
people named Leaha are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 200,908 born in 2025 was named Leaha
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Kyoko test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Leaha's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Kyoko climbed just as high around 1940, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Kyoko's path sketches the road Leaha is walking now.
Leaha 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
Leaha beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Leaha in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A documented biblical bearer with a story that is actually about her.
- Lea and Lee both work as short forms and both stand alone.
- Two syllables and no sound that is difficult in any European language.
- Leah is the standard spelling by a very wide margin, and this one will be corrected constantly.
- The added a does nothing audible, so its whole cost is paid for appearance.
- The meaning most often printed for it is weary, which is not a comfortable thing to hand a child.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Leaha
Feminine · #10917 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Leahas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Leaha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Leaha in 2025?
- Leaha ranks #10917 among US girl names in 2025, with 8 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Leaha?
- About 1 in every 200,908 US girls born in 2025 was named Leaha — 8 in all.
- Will my child share the name Leaha with classmates?
- Leaha will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Leaha
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
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Leaha? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Leaha and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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