Lela
Feminine · “night”
Lela is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 43,005 girls against 68 boys since 1880.
Lela is night, or it is a Roman family name — the Arabic Layla and the Latin Laelia both produced it, and nineteenth-century American registers give no way of telling which a family meant.
How old is the name Lela?
Lela was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Lela alive today was born around 1924, making them about 101 years old. About 13,000 people named Lela are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Lela most popular?
Lela peaked in 1894, reaching #113 nationally. Today it ranks #2368, 2,255 places below that high. See the whole 1894 chart.
Where it comes from
From layla to Lela
The story of Lela
Layla and Majnun is one of the great love stories of the Persian and Arabic tradition, and Byron's use of Leila in the 1810s brought the name into English. Separately, Lelia was a Roman gens name in modest literary use. Nineteenth-century American families used Lela in real numbers from the 1870s, peaking around 1900, apparently drawing on both.
Meaningscholars disagree
night
Read as a form of Leila, the meaning is the Arabic layla, 'night', which reached English through Persian poetry and Byron. Read as a form of Lelia, it descends from the Roman family name Laelius, whose own origin is not recovered. The two are unrelated and both fed the American name.
How the name formed
- layla
- Leila
- Lela
Related forms: Layla · Leila · Lelia
Pronouncing Lela
LEE-luh
Two syllables, stress on the first. Some families said LAY-luh instead, which is closer to the Arabic; both are recorded.
Nicknames for Lela
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
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 1921907 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #113reached in 1894
- Change vs 2022
- −24.0%76 in 2025, from 100
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.
Lela in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Layla in Arabic — related form
- Leila in English — spelling variant
- Lelia in Italian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Ohio.
Lelas among us
people named Lela are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 21,148 born in 2025 was named Lela
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Lela
- #2368
- Lela on the 2025 chart
- #687
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Lela went to 76 girls in 2025, but Leela, Leelah and Lelah are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 280, which makes it the 687th most-given girls’ name of the year — 1,681 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 5,740 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 21,148 for Lela 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
Fashion outlook
Lela 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 Lela is headed
Lela should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High 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.
Lela beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Lela in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The night meaning is vivid, and the Persian love story behind Layla is genuinely famous.
- Two soft syllables with no hard consonants at all.
- It is genuinely rare now while being entirely traditional in the registers.
- Two pronunciations are recorded and the spelling settles neither.
- The origin is split between unrelated Arabic and Latin sources.
- It is strongly period-coded to the turn of the last century.
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What they receive
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Lela
Feminine · #2368 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Lelas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 13,000 people named Lela are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Lela?
- Lela is one of 4 recorded spellings. Leela is the more common one — 175 births in 2025 against 76 for Lela.
- How popular is the name Lela in 2025?
- Lela ranks #2368 among US girl names in 2025, with 76 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Lela?
- About 1 in every 21,148 US girls born in 2025 was named Lela — 76 in all.
- Will my child share the name Lela with classmates?
- Lela will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Lela
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Eevee#2368 · Roya#2368 · Jaziyah#2368 · Mariama#2368 · Weslynn#2368 · Sinai#2368 · Taya#2368 · Ramsey#2368
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Lela? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Lela and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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