Leiland
Masculine · “fallow land”
Leland means fallow land — ground deliberately left unplanted for a season so that it recovers. It is an English place name and surname, and it belonged to one of the great American industrialists. Leiland is the respelled version, and its peak is 2012.
How old is the name Leiland?
Leiland first appears in US birth records in 2004 — 21 years ago. The typical Leiland is a kid of about 12 — this name's wave is very recent. About 600 people named Leiland are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Leiland most popular?
Leiland peaked in 2012, reaching #2270 nationally. Today it ranks #6143, 3,873 places below that high. See the whole 2012 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From laege land to Leiland
The story of Leiland
Leland Stanford was a railroad magnate, governor of California and United States senator, and in 1885 he and his wife founded a university in memory of their son, who had died at fifteen — Leland Stanford Junior University, still its formal name. That gave the name real American visibility. It has been in continuous if modest use as a given name since the nineteenth century. The Leiland respelling is recent and belongs to the general habit of adding an i to make a name look longer and more distinctive.
Meaning
fallow land; untilled ground
Old English laege land means land lying fallow — untilled, resting. The word laege survives in the modern agricultural term ley, a field put down to grass. Leyland in Lancashire is the best-known place of the name, and the surname derives from it and from similar places. The derivation is settled. Leyland Motors, the British vehicle manufacturer, is named for the town.
How the name formed
- laege land
- Leyland
- Leland
- Leiland
Related forms: Leland · Leyland
Pronouncing Leiland
LEE-lund
Two syllables, stress on the first, with the ending reduced. Identical to Leland; the added i changes nothing audible, though readers may pause over it.
Nicknames for Leiland
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
- 2004
- Most boys named
- 201257 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2270reached in 2012
- Change vs 2024
- −6.7%14 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.
Leiland in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Leland in English — spelling variant
- Leyland in English — spelling variant
Leilands among us
people named Leiland are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 122,005 born in 2025 was named Leiland
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Leiland
- #6143
- Leiland on the 2025 chart
- #903
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Leiland went to 14 boys in 2025, but Leyland is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 25, which makes it the 903rd most-given boys’ name of the year — 5,240 places above the chart.
- Leiland14
- Leyland11
About 1 boy in 68,323 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 122,005 for Leiland 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 Murad test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Leiland's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Murad climbed just as high around 1977, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Murad's path sketches the road Leiland is walking now.
Leiland 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
Leiland beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Leiland in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Lee is a complete, familiar name available as a short form.
- The meaning is concrete, agricultural and easy to explain.
- It has a genuinely prominent American bearer.
- It will be corrected to Leland by most people writing it down.
- The added i invites a pause from readers seeing it cold.
- It is easily heard as Leland, Ireland or Lealand.
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Leiland
Masculine · #6143 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Leilands 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 Leiland are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Leiland?
- Leiland is the most-used spelling in US records — 14 of the 25 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Leyland.
- How popular is the name Leiland in 2025?
- Leiland ranks #6143 among US boy names in 2025, with 14 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Leiland?
- About 1 in every 122,005 US boys born in 2025 was named Leiland — 14 in all.
- Will my child share the name Leiland with classmates?
- Leiland will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Leiland
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Ruel#6143 · Cornell#6143 · Vasco#6143 · Kemper#6143 · Yates#6143 · Roark#6143 · Raja#6143 · Orville#6143
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Leiland? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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