Wila

given name · Latin script

Meaning, in English: Bryoria fremontii, a dark-brown, hair-like lichen eaten by First Peoples in North America

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

Wila is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Brazil than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • PHPhilippines≈1 in 479K(inferred from the name graph)
  • BRBrazil1 in 601K
  • PEPeru≈1 in 2.6M

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

Brazil (measured from records)

352 people, 2022

Sources
28 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 479K (inferred from the name graph)

Philippines, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

Bryoria fremontii, a dark-brown, hair-like lichen eaten by First Peoples in North America.

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.

How Wila is read(measured from records)

Wila 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.

  • English35%

    Bryoria fremontii, a dark-brown, hair-like lichen eaten by First Peoples in North America.

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

  • Indonesian28%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Wila in Indonesian.

  • Portuguese13%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Wila in Portuguese.

  • Spanish8.1%

    alternative form of güila

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

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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)

Wila 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 Wila is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
BR Brazil3521 in 601K598Wila28
PH Philippines≈230 est.≈1 in 479K—Wila12
US United States1111 in 3M110Wila14
CO Colombia≈18 est.≈1 in 2.7M—Wila6
PE Peru≈12 est.≈1 in 2.6M—Wila11

352 people counted by IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror), 2022. 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: IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); IBGE — Nomes (census name API); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex. 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)

Wila is also recorded as 3 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English given name5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Philippines, United Kingdom, Canada

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Wi-La, Wilā

  • Thai given name8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Thailand, United States, Philippines, Malaysia

    Also written วิละ, วีละ, วละ, Weela, วิล่ะ

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Wīla

32 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)

Wila is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In bhp, tree which yields a fruit with sticky sap that can be used as glue and to stiffen cloth

    as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0

  • In kvh, the calabash tree: Crescentia cujete

    as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0

  • In ang, genitive plural of wīl

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

  • In Quechua, candle

    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.

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 13 sources across 6 countries.

Official registers attesting Wila
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—43#116,436
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, voter-file supplement (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 1

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

What does the name Wila mean, and where does it come from?
Bryoria fremontii, a dark-brown, hair-like lichen eaten by First Peoples in North America. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
Is Wila a male or female name?
Wila is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
In which country does Wila have the most bearers?
In Brazil, the national register counted about 352 people named Wila, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled wila.
How common is the name Wila?
In Brazil, the national register counted 352 people named Wila in 2022, about 1 in 601 thousand residents.

What do you want to know about Wila?

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

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, “Wila”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Wila parses inside a full name →