Lesa
Feminine · “my God is an oath”
Lesa is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 11,409 girls against 12 boys since 1880.
Lesa is Lisa respelled, and Lisa is Elizabeth with everything but the middle removed — the Hebrew sentence reduced to two syllables of pure sound.
How old is the name Lesa?
Lesa first appears in US birth records in 1915 — 110 years ago. The typical Lesa alive today was born around 1964, making them about 61 years old. About 10,000 people named Lesa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Lesa most popular?
Lesa peaked in 1962, reaching #340 nationally. See the whole 1962 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Elisheva to Lesa
The story of Lesa
Elizabeth is the mother of John the Baptist in Luke, and the name generated dozens of short forms. Lisa arose in German and Italian use and became enormously popular in twentieth-century America, standing at number one for most of the 1960s. The respellings followed, and Lesa peaked around 1968.
Meaning
my God is an oath
Through Lisa and Elizabeth, from the Hebrew Elisheva — el, 'God', and sheva, 'oath'. Elizabeth has produced more short forms than almost any other name, and Lisa is the one that became a full name in its own right across Europe and America.
How the name formed
- Elisheva
- Elizabeth
- Lisa
- Lesa
Related forms: Lisa · Leesa · Liesa
Pronouncing Lesa
LEE-suh
Two syllables, stress on the first. Lesa, Lisa and Leesa are said identically.
Nicknames for Lesa
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
- 1915
- Most girls named
- 1961765 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #340reached in 1962
- Change vs 2014
- +20.0%6 in 2018, from 5
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.
Lesa in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Lisa in English — spelling variant
- Leesa in English — spelling variant
- Liesa in German — related form
Lesas among us
people named Lesa are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Lesa sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- Elizabeth stands behind it with three thousand years of documented use.
- Elizabeth is available as a full formal version.
- Four letters, two syllables, and never misheard.
- Lisa is overwhelmingly the standard spelling and will be assumed.
- The e suggests a short vowel that the name does not have.
- It is sharply dated to the late 1960s and 1970s.
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Lesa
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Lesas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 10,000 people named Lesa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Lesa in 2025?
- Lesa is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Lesa with classmates?
- Lesa will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More L names
The most-given names starting with L, all years combined.
Linda#902 · Lisa#987 · Laura#379 · Lauren#401 · Lillian#57 · Lori#1721 · Louise#514 · Lois#1666
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Lesa? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Lesa and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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