Lilia
Feminine · Latin roots · “lily”
Lilia is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 14,314 girls against 5 boys since 1880.
Lilia is the lily, straight from the Latin lilium — the flower that painters put in the angel's hand in every Annunciation from the Middle Ages onward. It is the same name in Italian, Spanish, Russian and Polish, needing no adjustment at any border. In the mouth it is three light syllables with nothing hard in them: LEE-lee-ah.
How old is the name Lilia?
Lilia first appears in US birth records in 1884 — 141 years ago. The typical Lilia alive today was born around 1997, making them about 28 years old. About 12,500 people named Lilia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Lilia most popular?
Lilia peaked in 1928, reaching #750 nationally. Today it ranks #859, 109 places below that high. See the whole 1928 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From lilium (Latin) to Lilia
The story of Lilia
The lily has been a name-worthy flower for a very long time: Latin lilium gave the Romance languages their word for it, and gave Europe a small family of given names. Lilia is one of them, standing beside Liliana, Lilian and the English Lily, and it settled independently in Italian, Spanish and the Slavic languages, where Russian and Ukrainian speakers say and write Liliya. Christian art carried the flower's prestige — the white lily as the emblem of purity, and later the fleur-de-lis on French heraldry — which kept lily names in circulation across centuries and confessions. In the United States it has arrived by several roads at once: through Spanish-speaking and Italian-American families, and through the broader English fondness for flower names.
Meaning
lily
From Latin lilium, the lily. Where Latin itself got the word is less clear — it appears to have come into Latin from an older Mediterranean language — but the flower meaning of the name is not in doubt.
How the name formed
- liliumLatin
- Lilia
- Liliana
- Lily
Related forms: Lilia · Lilia · Liliya (Лилия) · Liliia · Lilia · Lily
Pronouncing Lilia
LEE-lee-ah
LEE-lee-ah is the usual English and Spanish reading. Some English speakers say LIL-ee-ah, on the pattern of Lillian, and Spanish speakers often compress the ending to LEE-lyah. All three are accepted; it helps to pick one and repeat it.
Nicknames for Lilia
High
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
- 1884
- Most girls named
- 2025315 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #750reached in 1928
- Change vs 2022
- +21.2%315 in 2025, from 260
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.
Lilia in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Lilia in Spanish — same name
- Lilia in Italian — same name
- Liliya (Лилия) in Russian — transliteration
- Liliia in Ukrainian — transliteration
- Lilia in Polish — same name
- Lily in English — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Lilias among us
people named Lilia are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 5,102 born in 2025 was named Lilia
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Lilia
- #859
- Lilia on the 2025 chart
- #555
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Lilia went to 315 girls in 2025, but Lillia, Lilya and Liliya and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 7 spellings went to 444, which makes it the 555th most-given girls’ name of the year — 304 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 3,620 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 5,102 for Lilia 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 Irine test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Lilia's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Irine climbed just as high around 1910, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Irine's path sketches the road Lilia is walking now.
Lilia is on its second act. Revived names age gently: the generation that wore them first is far enough away that the name feels classic rather than dated.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Lilia is headed
Lilia 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.
Lilia beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Lilia in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled and pronounced the same in Spanish, Italian and Polish, with a close match in Russian and Ukrainian — useful in a family that crosses languages.
- The meaning is plain and undisputed: the lily, from Latin. Parents who care about meaning get a clear answer.
- Ready-made short forms already in real use — Lili, Lia — so nothing has to be invented.
- Familiar in sound because of Lily and Lillian, while the full spelling stays uncommon in classrooms.
- The Lily/Lilia/Lila/Liliana cluster is crowded, and people will guess wrong. Expect a lifetime of gentle corrections, mostly from those who hear Lily and write it that way.
- Two live pronunciations, LEE-lee-ah and LIL-ee-ah, means introducing the name will usually include saying which one you mean.
- Because it sits so close to Lily, a child may find the shorter form applied to her by others whether or not the family uses it.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Lilia
Feminine · Latin roots · #859 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Lilias are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 12,500 people named Lilia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Lilia?
- Lilia is the most-used spelling in US records — 315 of the 444 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Lillia, Lilya, Liliya, Liliah, Lilliah and Lylia.
- How popular is the name Lilia in 2025?
- Lilia ranks #859 among US girl names in 2025, with 315 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Lilia?
- About 1 in every 5,102 US girls born in 2025 was named Lilia — 315 in all.
- Will my child share the name Lilia with classmates?
- Lilia will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Lilia
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Madilynn#859 · Jamie#857 · Haley#861 · Darcy#857 · Soraya#862 · Nala#856 · Eleanora#862 · Jemma#862
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Lilia? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Lilia and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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