Leisha
Feminine · “noble kind”
Languages drop the fronts of words when the first syllable carries no stress. English got squire from esquire and spy from espy that way, and names do it too: Alicia loses its opening vowel and becomes Leisha, with nothing else changed at all.
How old is the name Leisha?
Leisha first appears in US birth records in 1956 — 69 years ago. The typical Leisha alive today was born around 1974, making them about 51 years old. About 2,000 people named Leisha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Leisha most popular?
Leisha peaked in 1960, reaching #870 nationally. Today it ranks #6546, 5,676 places below that high. See the whole 1960 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Adalheidis to Leisha
The story of Leisha
The loss of an unstressed initial syllable is called aphesis, and it is one of the most reliable things a language does: English words lost their fronts in bulk between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, giving fence from defense, story from history and cute from acute. Names follow the same rule when the first syllable is weak, which is why Elizabeth gives Beth and Lisa, Alexander gives Sander in Dutch, and Alicia gives Leisha. American records place Leisha's best year in 1960, in the middle of the Alicia and Alisha wave, which is what a shortened form of a popular name usually does.
Meaningscholars disagree
noble kind, from a Germanic original
If the name is a shortening of Alicia or Alisha, the source is Adalheidis, combining adal, noble, with heid, kind or sort, by way of French Alice. If it is instead a form of Aleesha or of Aisha, Arabic for living or she who lives, the meaning is quite different. The first is more likely for a name peaking in 1960, before Arabic names entered American use in numbers.
How the name formed
- Adalheidis
- Alice
- Alicia
- Leisha
Related forms: Lesha · Alisha · Lesha
Pronouncing Leisha
LEE-shuh
Two syllables with the stress on the first. Some families say LAY-shuh, following the ei spelling as a long a, and both are current.
Nicknames for Leisha
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
- 1956
- Most girls named
- 1960142 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #870reached in 1960
- Change vs 2024
- −46.9%17 in 2025, from 32
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.
Leisha in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Lesha in English — spelling variant
- Alisha in English — related form
- Lesha in Russian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Florida, Indiana, Texas.
Leishas among us
people named Leisha are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 94,545 born in 2025 was named Leisha
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Leisha
- #6546
- Leisha on the 2025 chart
- #937
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Leisha went to 17 girls in 2025, but Leysha is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 23, which makes it the 937th most-given girls’ name of the year — 5,609 places above the chart.
- Leisha17
- Leysha6
About 1 girl in 69,881 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 94,545 for Leisha 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 Johnny test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Leisha's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Johnny climbed just as high around 1928, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Johnny's path sketches the road Leisha is walking now.
Leisha 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
Leisha beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Leisha in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Short, soft and immediately pronounceable from the page.
- Lee is available as a completely established unisex short form.
- Six letters and no silent ones.
- The ei can be read as a long e or a long a, and neither is wrong.
- Alisha, Lesha and Leisha all circulate and split the records.
- It reads as a name of the 1960s and 1970s in American ears.
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What they receive
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Leisha
Feminine · #6546 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Leishas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,000 people named Leisha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Leisha?
- Leisha is the most-used spelling in US records — 17 of the 23 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Leysha.
- How popular is the name Leisha in 2025?
- Leisha ranks #6546 among US girl names in 2025, with 17 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Leisha?
- About 1 in every 94,545 US girls born in 2025 was named Leisha — 17 in all.
- Will my child share the name Leisha with classmates?
- Leisha will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Leisha
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Roseann#6546 · Solveig#6546 · Elona#6546 · Rosette#6546 · Bradie#6546 · Rida#6546 · Gwendalyn#6546 · Lorene#6546
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Leisha? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Leisha and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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