Lelan
Masculine · “Old English laege land”
Leland means fallow land, and fallow was not waste. In the open-field system a third of the arable was left unplanted each year to recover, and the fallow field was pastured, manured and ploughed. A name that sounds like emptiness records a piece of agricultural engineering that fed England for six hundred years.
How old is the name Lelan?
Lelan first appears in US birth records in 1912 — 113 years ago. The typical Lelan alive today was born around 2005, making them about 20 years old. About 700 people named Lelan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Lelan most popular?
Lelan peaked in 1925, reaching #1935 nationally. Today it ranks #8243, 6,308 places below that high. See the whole 1925 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From laege land to Lelan
The story of Lelan
The three-field rotation is the reason so much English place vocabulary is about land in particular states. One field grew wheat or rye, one grew barley, oats, peas or beans, and one lay fallow, and each year they rotated. The fallow field was not idle: livestock grazed it, their manure restored it, and it was ploughed several times to kill weeds. Words for the different conditions of ground survive across English naming: ley and lea for grassland, laege for fallow, croft for an enclosed plot, garth for a yard, thwaite for a clearing, holm for water meadow, ing for meadow. Every one of them was a working distinction that mattered to the people who used it. Leland preserves one of the more technical ones, and the reason it looks like a bare description is that it was.
Meaning
Old English laege land, fallow land
From Old English laege, fallow or untilled, and land. The surname was given to someone living by such ground, and the given name follows from it. Lelan is a variant spelling of Leland, dropping the d, and appears in American records from the late nineteenth century. It peaks in 1925.
How the name formed
- laege land
- Leland
- Lelan
Related forms: Leland · Leyland
Pronouncing Lelan
LEE-lund
Two syllables, stress on the first. Lelan and Leland are usually homophones in American speech, since the final d after n is often unreleased. Some families say luh-LAN with the stress at the end.
Nicknames for Lelan
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
- 1912
- Most boys named
- 200633 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1935reached in 1925
- Change vs 2023
- 0.0%9 in 2025, from 9
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.
Lelan in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Leland in English — spelling variant
- Leyland in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Georgia.
Lelans among us
people named Lelan are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 189,786 born in 2025 was named Lelan
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Lelan
- #8243
- Lelan on the 2025 chart
- #902
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Lelan went to 9 boys in 2025, but Leelan is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 26, which makes it the 902nd most-given boys’ name of the year — 7,341 places above the chart.
- Leelan17
- Lelan9
About 1 boy in 65,695 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 189,786 for Lelan 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
Lelan 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
Lelan beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Lelan in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Both Old English elements have settled meanings.
- Lee is a clean and established short form.
- It fits the American tradition of surnames used as given names.
- Leland with the d is far more common.
- Two stress patterns circulate.
- The name reads as early twentieth century in American records.
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Lelan
Masculine · #8243 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Lelans are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Lelan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Lelan?
- Lelan is one of 2 recorded spellings. Leelan is the more common one — 17 births in 2025 against 9 for Lelan.
- How popular is the name Lelan in 2025?
- Lelan ranks #8243 among US boy names in 2025, with 9 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Lelan?
- About 1 in every 189,786 US boys born in 2025 was named Lelan — 9 in all.
- Will my child share the name Lelan with classmates?
- Lelan will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Lelan
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Danial#8243 · Ogden#8243 · Aaren#8243 · Trinity#8243 · Kourtney#8243 · Maury#8243 · Lindon#8243 · Elbert#8243
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Lelan? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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