Leighla
Feminine · “Arabic layla”
Eric Clapton wrote Layla in 1970 after reading a Persian poem from 1188 about an Arab poet of the seventh century who went mad for a woman he could not marry. The story is Layla and Majnun, and Majnun means madman. A rock song, a Persian epic, and an Arabian love story stand behind an American spelling with -eigh- in it.
How old is the name Leighla?
Leighla first appears in US birth records in 1988 — 37 years ago. The typical Leighla is a kid of about 11 — this name's wave is very recent. About 900 people named Leighla are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Leighla most popular?
Leighla peaked in 2019, reaching #2709 nationally. Today it ranks #8362, 5,653 places below that high. See the whole 2019 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From layla to Leighla
The story of Leighla
The story is old and its transmission is well documented. Qays ibn al-Mulawwah, a seventh-century Arabian poet, was said to have fallen in love with Layla, been refused her by her family, and gone into the desert composing verses until he lost his reason. Arab collections preserved the poems and the anecdotes. In 1188 the Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi made them into a long narrative poem, and that version traveled across the Islamic world and into Turkish, Urdu, Kurdish and Malay, becoming one of the most retold love stories in Asia. Clapton read a translation and wrote the song in 1970 about a woman he could not have; the record made the name available in English, and it entered the American data shortly afterwards. The -eigh- spelling is a much later addition, borrowed from a small set of English words where it represents a long a rather than a long i.
Meaning
Arabic layla, night
From Arabic layl, night, with layla meaning a night or, as a name, one of the night. The name belongs to the beloved of Qays, called Majnun, the madman, in the Arabic and Persian romance tradition. Leighla is an American respelling using the -eigh- digraph borrowed from English words such as eight and weigh. It peaks in 2019.
How the name formed
- layla
- Layla
- Leighla
Related forms: Layla · Leila · Leyli
Pronouncing Leighla
LAY-lah
Two syllables, stress on the first. The -eigh- digraph is read as a long a, as in weigh. The Arabic layla has the diphthong of eye in the first syllable, LY-lah, which is why Leila and Layla are said differently by different families.
Nicknames for Leighla
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
- 1988
- Most girls named
- 201963 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2709reached in 2019
- Change vs 2024
- −20.0%12 in 2025, from 15
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.
Leighla in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Layla in Arabic — transliteration
- Leila in English — spelling variant
- Leyli in Persian — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Illinois.
Leighlas among us
people named Leighla are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 133,939 born in 2025 was named Leighla
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 Emileigh test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Leighla's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Emileigh climbed just as high around 2002, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Emileigh's path sketches the road Leighla is walking now.
Leighla 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
Leighla beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Leighla in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is settled and the literary history is extraordinary.
- The sound is soft and universally easy to say.
- Several short forms are available.
- Layla and Leila are both far more common.
- The -eigh- digraph adds three letters and no sound.
- The Arabic and English first vowels differ.
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What they receive
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Leighla
Feminine · #8362 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Leighlas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 900 people named Leighla are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Leighla in 2025?
- Leighla ranks #8362 among US girl names in 2025, with 12 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Leighla?
- About 1 in every 133,939 US girls born in 2025 was named Leighla — 12 in all.
- Will my child share the name Leighla with classmates?
- Leighla will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Leighla
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lona#8362 · Peggy#8362 · Leda#8362 · Margarette#8362 · Rella#8362 · Evalena#8362 · Vashti#8362 · Nona#8362
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Leighla? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Leighla and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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