Liliya
Feminine · “lily”
Liliya is the Russian and Ukrainian form of the lily, and it is one of the very few names on the American list whose peak year is the most recent one on record. Its numbers rose sharply in the 2020s, in the years after 2022 brought a large and sudden Ukrainian arrival in the United States, and the name's American history is therefore still being written rather than looked back on.
How old is the name Liliya?
Liliya first appears in US birth records in 1992 — 33 years ago. The typical Liliya alive today was born around 2011, making them about 14 years old. About 600 people named Liliya are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Liliya most popular?
Liliya peaked in 2024, reaching #4114 nationally. Today it ranks #5722, 1,608 places below that high. See the whole 2024 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From lilium to Liliya
The story of Liliya
Flower names entered Slavic naming later than saints' names did, and mostly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when the whole of Europe took up botany as a source of girls' names. Liliya belongs to that layer, alongside Rozа and Violetta, and it became a standard name in Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria and among Volga Tatars. American records show it in very small numbers for most of the twentieth century. What changed is demographic rather than fashionable: following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, several hundred thousand Ukrainians arrived in the United States, and names that had been rare here became visible in the birth records within two years.
Meaning
lily
Latin lilium is the name of the flower, and it entered Slavic languages as liliya, spelled with a soft final vowel in both Russian and Ukrainian. The word itself is older than Latin and was probably borrowed from an eastern Mediterranean language, which is why it looks similar across Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Egyptian. As a given name it works exactly as Lily does in English — a flower name, chosen for the flower.
How the name formed
- lilium
- liliya
- Liliya
Related forms: Liliia · Liliya · Liliya · Lily · Lilia
Pronouncing Liliya
LEE-lee-yah
Three syllables, stress on the first, with the final -ya as a single soft syllable. English speakers commonly say li-LEE-ah, moving the stress to the middle, which is understood but is not how it is said at home.
Nicknames for Liliya
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
- 1992
- Most girls named
- 202435 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #4114reached in 2024
- Change vs 2024
- −40.0%21 in 2025, from 35
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.
Liliya in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Liliia in Ukrainian — transliteration
- Liliya in Russian — same name
- Liliya in Bulgarian — same name
- Lily in English — related form
- Lilia in German — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California.
Liliyas among us
people named Liliya are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 76,537 born in 2025 was named Liliya
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Liliya
- #5722
- Liliya on the 2025 chart
- #555
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Liliya went to 21 girls in 2025, but Lilia, Lillia and Lilya 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 — 5,167 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 3,620 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 76,537 for Liliya 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 Rickia test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Liliya's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Rickia climbed just as high around 1994, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Rickia's path sketches the road Liliya is walking now.
Liliya 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
Liliya beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Liliya in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is a single familiar flower, understood in every European language.
- Lily is available as an exact English equivalent, which makes the name portable.
- The spelling is phonetic in English and needs no accents.
- Liliya, Liliia and Lilia are all standard transliterations, so documents will disagree.
- English speakers routinely move the stress to the second syllable.
- It is close enough to Lily and Lila to be misheard as either.
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What they receive
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Liliya
Feminine · #5722 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Liliyas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Liliya are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Liliya?
- Liliya is one of 7 recorded spellings. Lilia is the more common one — 315 births in 2025 against 21 for Liliya.
- How popular is the name Liliya in 2025?
- Liliya ranks #5722 among US girl names in 2025, with 21 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Liliya?
- About 1 in every 76,537 US girls born in 2025 was named Liliya — 21 in all.
- Will my child share the name Liliya with classmates?
- Liliya will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Liliya
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Rosina#5722 · Delores#5722 · Vaughn#5722 · Roseline#5722 · Loyal#5722 · Missy#5722 · Danitza#5722 · Margret#5722
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Liliya? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Liliya and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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