Leva
Feminine · “life”
Eve is Ieva in Lithuania and Latvia, said with a y at the front, and it has been one of the commonest women's names there for centuries. The Baltic languages are the most conservative branch of the Indo-European family still spoken, and they do this to a great many borrowed names.
How old is the name Leva?
Leva first appears in US birth records in 1883 — 142 years ago. The typical Leva alive today was born around 1918, making them about 107 years old. About 100 people named Leva are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Leva most popular?
Leva peaked in 1901, reaching #723 nationally. Today it ranks #11932, 11,209 places below that high. See the whole 1901 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Chavvah to Leva
The story of Leva
Lithuanian is the most archaic living Indo-European language, close enough to the reconstructed ancestor that linguists use it as evidence, and it treats incoming names firmly: Eva becomes Ieva, Ana becomes Ona, Maria becomes Marija, and every one of them takes a Lithuanian ending. Latvian does the same. The result is a stock of names that look invented to outsiders and are simply the ordinary European names put through a very old grammar. Whether Leva descends from that or was built here cannot be told from the record. The Bulgarian coincidence is worth mentioning and dismissing: leva is the plural of lev, a lion, and is what Bulgarians count money in.
Meaningscholars disagree
life
If the name is Ieva or Eva, the source is Hebrew Chavvah, built on a root meaning to live, and Genesis explains it as mother of all living. Leva may also be an American formation with no source. A separate Bulgarian word, lev, means lion and is the country's currency, plural leva.
How the name formed
- Chavvah
- Eva
- Leva
Related forms: Ieva · Ieva
Pronouncing Leva
LEE-vah
Two syllables, stress on the first. LEH-vah, with a short first vowel, is also recorded. The Lithuanian Ieva begins with a y sound, YEH-vah, which is a different opening altogether.
Nicknames for Leva
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
- 1883
- Most girls named
- 192133 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #723reached in 1901
- Change vs 2024
- 0.0%7 in 2025, from 7
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.
Leva in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ieva in Lithuanian — related form
- Ieva in Latvian — related form
Levas among us
people named Leva are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 229,610 born in 2025 was named Leva
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Leva 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
Leva beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Leva in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Four letters and two syllables, with nothing hard in either.
- One of its possible sources is among the oldest names in the western world.
- It is genuinely rare, so a child will almost certainly never meet another.
- Very few people carry it now and almost all of them are old.
- The first vowel is said two ways and the spelling settles neither.
- It is close enough to Eva, Leah and Neva to be misheard as any of them.
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Leva
Feminine · #11932 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Levas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 100 people named Leva are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Leva in 2025?
- Leva ranks #11932 among US girl names in 2025, with 7 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Leva?
- About 1 in every 229,610 US girls born in 2025 was named Leva — 7 in all.
- Will my child share the name Leva with classmates?
- Leva will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Leva
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Vina#11932 · Retta#11932 · Missouri#11932 · Iola#11932 · Louetta#11932 · Elvina#11932 · Ozella#11932 · David#11932
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Leva? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Leva and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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