Leila
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in Spanish: Hebrew and Arabic, 'night'; used for dark-haired or dark-complexioned girls
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/lajlə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Leila 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.
- BRBrazil1 in 2.2K(measured from records)
- AZAzerbaijan≈1 in 180as Leyla
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 183as Lee
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 Leila 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)
- #63 (measured from records)
- 9 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 670 (measured from records)
- 1 in 2.2K (inferred from the name graph)
≈3,800,000 named Li, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Brazil
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Lee in US United States, GB United Kingdom, MY Malaysia, Li in CN China, HK Hong Kong, TW Taiwan and Leyla in TR Türkiye, AZ Azerbaijan.
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)
Hebrew and Arabic, 'night'; used for dark-haired or dark-complexioned girls.
Sources 1
- Diccionario etimológico de nombres propios
Attested across 10 languages in the etymology graph.
How Leila is read(measured from records)
Leila is one spelling over 4 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.
- English28%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Leila in English.
- Portuguese22%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Leila in Portuguese.
- French16%
Origine arabe; signifie « douceur de la nuit ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Arabic Layla/Laylā, 'night'.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
- Spanish16%
Hebrew and Arabic, 'night'; used for dark-haired or dark-complexioned girls.
as a nameDiccionario etimológico de nombres propios
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)
Leila 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈3,800,000 est. | ≈1 in 368 | — | Li | 266 |
| TR Türkiye | #56 | 185,230as Leyla | 1 in 443 | 185K | Leyla | 114 |
| MY Malaysia | #19 | ≈180,000 est. | ≈1 in 183 | 2.9K | Lee | 216 |
| US United States | #31 | 164,578as Lee | 1 in 2K | 696K | Lee | 670 |
| GB United Kingdom | #38 | ≈150,000 est. | ≈1 in 448 | 2.2K | Lee | 408 |
| BR Brazil | #310 | 94,285 | 1 in 2.2K | 102K | Leila | 172 |
| TW Taiwan | — | ≈67,000 est. | ≈1 in 355 | — | Li | 187 |
| AZ Azerbaijan | #2 | ≈57,000 est. | ≈1 in 180 | 2.4K | Leyla | 79 |
| HK Hong Kong | #63 | ≈23,000 est. | ≈1 in 309 | — | Li | 183 |
| GE Georgia | #41 | 16,232as ლეილა | 1 in 246 | 16K | Leila | 39 |
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); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); IBGE — Nomes (census name API); 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Leila 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.
In Irish, Saint’s name of obscure meaning; very old name still in use.
as a nameIrish first names
Of Arabic origin, now fairly common in the English-speaking world, having been used as a name for an oriental beauty by both Byron, in The Giaour (1813) and Don Juan (1819-24), and by Lord Lytton for the heroine of his novel Leila (1838). In Arabic it means ‘night’, apparently alluding to a dark complexion. Variants: Laila, Layla, Lila.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In Italian, variant (feminine in form) of Lello.
as a nameDictionary of American Family 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)
- Leila Hyamsb. 1905USAmerican actress (1905-1977)
- Leila Abashidzeb. 1929GEGeorgian actress, film director, and writer (1929-2018)
- Leila Forouharb. 1959IRIranian actress and singer
- Leila Meskhib. 1968GEGeorgian female tennis player
- Leila Pahlavib. 1970IRIranian princess (1970-2001)
- Leila Hatamib. 1972IRIranian actress
- Laïla Marrakchib. 1975MAnot in their usual nameMoroccan film director and screenwriter
- Leila Josefowiczb. 1977CAAmerican-Canadian classical violinist. (born 1977)
- Leila Lopesb. 1986AOAngolan beauty pageant titleholder
- Leila Georgeb. 1992AUAustralian 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).
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 117 sources across 68 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 102K | #468 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 94K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 94K | #335 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 38K | #1,093 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 1.2K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 335 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 316 | #335 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 55 | #1,093 |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 2024 | 13 | #275 |
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
- How do you pronounce Leila?
- A machine transcription gives /lajlə/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Leila mean, and where does it come from?
- Hebrew and Arabic, 'night'; used for dark-haired or dark-complexioned girls. Recorded by Diccionario etimológico de nombres propios.
- Is Leila a male or female name?
- Leila 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 Leila?
- In the etymology graph, Leyla, Lila and Laila are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Leila have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 3.8 million people named Li in China, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Leila most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Leila is densest in Brazil — about 1 in 2.2 thousand people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Leila?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 94,285 people named Leila in 2022, about 1 in 2.2 thousand residents.
- How common is Leila compared with other names?
- In Azerbaijan, Leila is the 2nd most common given name of 28,848 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Leila?
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/leilaThe 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, “Leila” — the 2nd most common given name in Azerbaijan. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.