Leah
given name · Latin script
Meaning: The name is commonly associated with the Hebrew root 'la'ah' meaning 'weary' or 'tired', though some scholars suggest a connection to an Akkadian cognate meaning 'wild cow'
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/liːə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Leah is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Israel it is the 18th most common given name.
- RORomania≈1 in 671(inferred from the name graph)
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 1.2K
- USUnited States1 in 1.7K
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 Leah 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.
- United States (measured from records)
- #599 (measured from records)
- 9 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 570 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 671 (inferred from the name graph)
200,964 people, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Romania, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Lia in GE Georgia, BR Brazil, FI Finland and לאה in IL Israel, RO Romania.
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)
The name is commonly associated with the Hebrew root 'la'ah' meaning 'weary' or 'tired', though some scholars suggest a connection to an Akkadian cognate meaning 'wild cow'.
Sources 1
- Biblical Names Compiled Database
Attested across 20 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Leah 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.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #377 | 200,964 | 1 in 1.7K | 201K | Leah | 570 |
| PH Philippines | #174 | ≈91,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | 53K | Leah | 155 |
| RO Romania | #76 | ≈32,000 est. | ≈1 in 671 | — | לאה | 30 |
| GB United Kingdom | #322 | ≈27,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.5K | 480 | Leah | 307 |
| BR Brazil | — | 23,649as Lia | 1 in 9K | 24K | Lia | 154 |
| GE Georgia | #33 | 23,613as ლია | 1 in 169 | 24K | Lia | 64 |
| IL Israel | #18 | ≈23,000 est. | ≈1 in 385 | 1.1K | לאה | 86 |
| FI Finland | — | 11,049as Lea | 1 in 504 | 20K | Lia | 15 |
| HR Croatia | — | 5,344as Lea | 1 in 791 | 7.3K | — | 1 |
200,964 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. 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; CBS Israel — Names given to babies (1949–present); Georgia PSDA/SDA civil-registry name statistics (per-token API); Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); Top 500 First Names in the Philippines (PSA FOI response, tracking; IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); DZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form); DZS — Učestalost osobnih imena (Popis 2021). 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Leah is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Leah represents the matriarchal foundation of the priesthood and kingship in Israel, symbolizing God's compassion for the unloved and the fulfillment of divine promise through suffering and faithfulness.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
A classic biblical name symbolizing resilience, loyalty, and maternal strength.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
In Irish, Hebrew biblical name; wife of Jacob; possibly from a word meaning “weary”.
as a nameIrish first names
In English, Irish Gaelic; the light of the sun. See Eileen, Elaine, Eleanor, Ellen
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In English, The elder daughter of Laban, sister to Rachel, and first wife of Jacob.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- Delta Burkeb. 1956USnot in their usual nameactress
- Leah Ayresb. 1957USAmerican actress
- Leah Reminib. 1970USAmerican actress (born 1970)
- Rashida Jonesb. 1976USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress, writer, and producer (born 1976)
- Leah Pipesb. 1983USAmerican actress (born 1988)
- Leah Gibsonb. 1985CACanadian actress
- Rachel Bloomb. 1987USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress, singer, and producer
- Carmellab. 1987USnot in their usual nameAmerican professional wrestler, dancer and model
- Leah Lewisb. 1996CNAmerican actress (born 1996)
- Leah Williamsonb. 1997GBEnglish footballer (born 1997)
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).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 110 sources across 58 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 201K | #275 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 3.9K | — |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 341 | #1,320 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 259 | #275 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register) | — | 207 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 159 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 157 | #29,875 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 46 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 2024 | 31 | #145 |
| GB United Kingdom | NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present) | 2025 | 14 | #140 |
Reference works 5
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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
- How do you pronounce Leah?
- A machine transcription gives /liːə/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Leah have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 201 thousand people named Leah, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled leah.
- Is Leah a male or female name?
- Leah 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 are other forms of the name Leah?
- In the etymology graph, Lea, Lia and Léa are forms of the same name in other languages.
- What does the name Leah mean, and where does it come from?
- The name is commonly associated with the Hebrew root 'la'ah' meaning 'weary' or 'tired', though some scholars suggest a connection to an Akkadian cognate meaning 'wild cow'. Recorded by Biblical Names Compiled Database.
- How common is the name Leah?
- In the United States, the national register counted 200,964 people named Leah in 2020, about 1 in 1.7 thousand residents.
- How common is Leah compared with other names?
- In the United States, Leah is the 377th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Leah?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/leahThe 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, “Leah” — the 377th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.