Layla

given name · Latin script

Meaning, in English: A female given name from Arabic, variant of Leila

Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Layla is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Azerbaijan it is the 2nd most common given name.

rarermore common
  • AZAzerbaijan≈1 in 180as Leyla(inferred from the name graph)
  • MYMalaysia≈1 in 183as Lee
  • GEGeorgia1 in 246as ლეილა

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Layla itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

China (inferred from the name graph)

≈3,800,000 named Li, est.

#63 (measured from records)

of 15M given names

9 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
670 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 180 (inferred from the name graph)

Azerbaijan, est., as Leyla

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

LeeLatin(measured from records)
ЛейлаCyrillic(measured from records)
ליליHebrew(measured from records)
ไลลาThai(measured from records)
ԼիլիArmenian(measured from records)
ლეილაGeorgian(measured from records)
리리Hangul(measured from records)
ΙιGreek(measured from records)
ለኢላEthiopic(measured from records)

10 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Lee in US United States, GB United Kingdom, MY Malaysia, Li in CN China, HK Hong Kong, TW Taiwan, Leyla in TR Türkiye, AZ Azerbaijan and Leila in GE Georgia.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

‘Wine’ or ‘intoxication’; name of the beloved of the poet Qays ibnal-Mulawwa (d. 688).

Sources 1

  • A concise dictionary of first names

Attested across 7 languages in the etymology graph.

How Layla is read(measured from records)

Layla is one spelling over 5 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.

  • English39%

    A female given name from Arabic, variant of Leila.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

    Arabic; as intoxicating as wine

    as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…

  • Portuguese14%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Layla in Portuguese.

  • Arabic13%

    night

    as a nameAfrican Muslim Names

  • Spanish8.6%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Layla in Spanish.

  • French5.8%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Layla in French.

The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Layla counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.

Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.

Where Layla is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China—≈3,800,000 est.≈1 in 368—Li266
TR Türkiye#56185,230as Leyla1 in 443185KLeyla114
MY Malaysia#19≈180,000 est.≈1 in 1832.9KLee216
US United States#31164,578as Lee1 in 2K696KLee670
GB United Kingdom#38≈150,000 est.≈1 in 4482.2KLee408
TW Taiwan—≈67,000 est.≈1 in 355—Li187
AZ Azerbaijan#2≈57,000 est.≈1 in 1802.4KLeyla79
HK Hong Kong#63≈23,000 est.≈1 in 309—Li183
GE Georgia#4116,232as ლეილა1 in 24616KLeila39

Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.

Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; TÜİK NIP — most used given names; ONS — Baby names England and Wales (2024); data.gov.my — Name Popularity Dashboard (JPN, by decade and ethnicity); Georgia PSDA/SDA civil-registry name statistics (per-token API); Azerbaijan Ministry of Justice — Civil Registry Name Statistics. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).

Other names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Layla is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English given name32 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Laeyla, Laÿla, Làyla, Làylà, Laylā

  • Russian given name70 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Russia, Kazakhstan, Türkiye, United States

    Languages: Russian, Uzbek, Kazakh

    Also written Лайла, Laila, Лаила, Lyla, Lajla

  • Indonesian given name5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Indonesia, Malaysia, United States, Morocco

    Languages: Indonesian, Malay

    Also written 'Layla, Laylá, Ĺâýla

  • Turkish given name5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Türkiye, Iraq, Syria, Turkmenistan

    Languages: Turkish, Turkmen, Azerbaijani

    Also written Laylá

  • a separate name5 spellings in the group

    Also written Lay-La, Laylá, Láyla, Laylā

  • Finnish given name6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Finland, Morocco

    Languages: Finnish, Estonian

    Also written Lãylã, Lâylá, Läylä, Läÿlå

51 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Layla is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • ‘Wine’ or ‘intoxication’; name of the beloved of the poet Qays ibnal-Mulawwa (d. 688).

    as a nameA concise dictionary of first names

  • Born at night

    as a nameThe book of African names

  • In Swahili, Swahili/Muslim: born at night.

    as a nameAfrican Names

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

190019502000Leila Hyams, b. 1905Leila Abashidze, b. 1929Leila Forouhar, b. 1959Leila Meskhi, b. 1968Leila Pahlavi, b. 1970Leila Hatami, b. 1972Laïla Marrakchi, b. 1975Layla El, b. 1977Leila Lopes, b. 1986Leila George, b. 1992
  • Leila Hyamsb. 1905USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress (1905-1977)
  • Leila Abashidzeb. 1929GEnot in their usual nameGeorgian actress, film director, and writer (1929-2018)
  • Leila Forouharb. 1959IRnot in their usual nameIranian actress and singer
  • Leila Meskhib. 1968GEnot in their usual nameGeorgian female tennis player
  • Leila Pahlavib. 1970IRnot in their usual nameIranian princess (1970-2001)
  • Leila Hatamib. 1972IRnot in their usual nameIranian actress
  • Laïla Marrakchib. 1975MAnot in their usual nameMoroccan film director and screenwriter
  • Layla Elb. 1977GBBritish professional wrestler, dancer, and model
  • Leila Lopesb. 1986AOnot in their usual nameAngolan beauty pageant titleholder
  • Leila Georgeb. 1992AUnot in their usual nameAustralian actress

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 104 sources across 56 countries.

Official registers attesting Layla
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202085K#620
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)20255.3K—
GB United KingdomONS — Baby names England and Wales (2024)2024760#56
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020117#620
GB United KingdomNRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present)202489#41
GB United KingdomNISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present)202530#68

Reference works 5

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
  • Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

Frequently asked questions

Where does the name Layla come from?
‘Wine’ or ‘intoxication’; name of the beloved of the poet Qays ibnal-Mulawwa (d. 688). Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names.
Is Layla a male or female name?
Layla is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
What does the name Layla mean?
In English, A female given name from Arabic, variant of Leila.
What are other forms of the name Layla?
In the etymology graph, Leyla, Lila and Leila are forms of the same name in other languages.
In which country does Layla have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 3.8 million people named Li in China, more than in any other country we hold.
How common is the name Layla?
In Türkiye, the national register counted 185,230 people named Leyla in 2025, about 1 in 443 residents.
How common is Layla compared with other names?
In Azerbaijan, Layla is the 2nd most common given name of 28,848 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Layla?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/layla

The payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.

About this data

measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated

These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Layla” — the 2nd most common given name in Azerbaijan. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Layla parses inside a full name →