Lylah
Feminine · “Most often read as "night”
The sound in Lylah has been traveling for a very long time: Layla, the beloved of the Arabic love story that Nizami turned into Persian verse in the twelfth century, and Leila, whom Byron put into English poetry in the 1810s. The spelling with a y and a final h is a newer, English-language shaping of that old sound, sitting in company with Norah, Dinah and Hannah. Two syllables, and almost everyone says it right the first time.
How old is the name Lylah?
Lylah first appears in US birth records in 1916 — 109 years ago. The typical Lylah is a kid of about 8 — this name's wave is very recent. About 8,500 people named Lylah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Lylah most popular?
Lylah peaked in 2024, reaching #544 nationally. Today it ranks #584, 40 places below that high. See the whole 2024 chart.
Lylah appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From Layla to Lylah
The story of Lylah
Lylah is a modern English respelling rather than a name with its own separate root, and its history is really the history of the sound. That sound is oldest in Arabic, in the name Layla of the seventh-century poet Qays and his beloved — a story retold across Persian, Turkish and Urdu literature for centuries. English-speaking readers met it as Leila through Romantic-era poetry in the early nineteenth century, and it settled into English use alongside the separately rooted Lila. From there came Lyla, and from Lyla the fuller Lylah, part of a broad twentieth- and twenty-first-century habit of finishing girls' names with -ah. Its American footprint is spread widely across the country rather than concentrated in one region.
Meaningscholars disagree
Most often read as "night", from Arabic layl
Three readings genuinely compete, because three older names meet at this spelling. Through Layla and Leila the root is Arabic layl, "night". Through Lila the trail leads to Persian and Arabic līlak, "lilac", and separately to Sanskrit līlā, "play". And Lyla has also been used in English as a feminine partner to the surname Lyle, from Anglo-Norman de l'isle, "of the island". The Lylah spelling itself carries no meaning of its own; it inherits whichever of these you claim.
How the name formed
- Layla
- Leila
- Lila
- Lyla
- Lylah
Related forms: Layla (ليلى) · Leyla · Leyli · Lyla · Lilah · Lila
Pronouncing Lylah
LY-lah
First syllable rhymes with "my"; the ending is a light -uh. Because Leila and Layla are close neighbors, some people will guess LEE-lah or LAY-lah on sight, so expect to correct that now and then.
Nicknames for Lylah
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
- 1916
- Most girls named
- 2024556 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #544reached in 2024
- Change vs 2024
- −9.5%503 in 2025, from 556
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.
Lylah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Layla (ليلى) in Arabic — related form
- Leyla in Turkish — related form
- Leyli in Persian — related form
- Lyla in English — spelling variant
- Lilah in English — spelling variant
- Lila in English — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Lylahs among us
people named Lylah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 3,195 born in 2025 was named Lylah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Lylah
- #584
- Lylah on the 2025 chart
- #19
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Lylah went to 503 girls in 2025, but Lyla, Lilah and Lila and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 9 spellings went to 7,096, which makes it the 19th most-given girls’ name of the year — 565 places above the chart.
and 4 rarer spellings.
About 1 girl in 227 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 3,195 for Lylah 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 Mickey test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Lylah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Mickey climbed just as high around 1948, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Mickey's path sketches the road Lylah is walking now.
Lylah 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
Where Lylah is headed
Lylah 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.
Lylah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Lylah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Two syllables, no consonant clusters, and readable at a glance by English speakers — most people say it correctly on first sight.
- The sound is long established in English through Layla, Leila and Lila, so it is familiar to the ear even where the spelling is not.
- The -ah ending places it in a well-worn pattern with Norah, Hannah, Sarah and Dinah, which makes the spelling feel logical to people writing it down.
- Used steadily across the country rather than clustered in one region, and part of a name family that spans Arabic, Persian, Turkish and English.
- It sits inside a crowded family of near-identical spellings — Lyla, Lila, Lilah, Layla, Leila. She will be spelling it out for people her whole life, and forms will come back wrong more often than not.
- The spelling is uncommon but the sound is not. She may well be the only Lylah in her class and still share a sound-alike name with someone in the year.
- Almost everyone carrying this exact spelling is a child right now, so there are few adult namesakes to point to — which cuts both ways: little baggage, little precedent.
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What they receive
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Lylah
Feminine · #584 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Lylahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 8,500 people named Lylah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Lylah?
- Lylah is one of 5 recorded spellings. Lyla is the more common one — 3,089 births in 2025 against 503 for Lylah.
- How popular is the name Lylah in 2025?
- Lylah ranks #584 among US girl names in 2025, with 503 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Lylah?
- About 1 in every 3,195 US girls born in 2025 was named Lylah — 503 in all.
- Will my child share the name Lylah with classmates?
- Lylah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Lylah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Jordan#584 · Noemi#583 · Jennifer#586 · Reina#582 · Chaya#587 · Alia#587 · Mara#587 · Kailany#581
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Lylah? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Lylah and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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