Laila
Laila is a girl's name that peaked in 2008, when it was the 140th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 413th. About 43,000 Lailas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 14.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Laila boys named Laila
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 43,507
- Estimated living today
- 43,000
- Median age today
- 14
- Peak year
- 2008
- Best rank
- 140th
- Rank in 2025
- 413th
- First recorded
- 1884
- Girls / boys
- 43,484 / 23
How old the living Lailas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 43,507 babies given the name since 1884, about 43,000 are alive — 98 in every hundred. Roughly 30,000 of them are children and 210 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2011 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Arabic
Variant of Leila and Layla, from Arabic لَيْلَى, related to لَيْلَة (“night”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Lailas
- Laila Ali (born 1977)American television personality and retired professional boxer
- Laila Mourad (1918–1995)Egyptian actor and singer
- Laila Kinnunen (1939–2000)Finnish singer
- Laila Lalami (born 1968)American writer
- Laila Freivalds (born 1942)Swedish politician and jurist
- Laila Robins (born 1959)American actress
- Laila Schou Nilsen (1919–1998)Norwegian tennis player, speed skater, alpine skier, motor racedriver, handball referee
- Laila Halme (1934–2021)Finnish singer
People named Laila with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Laila is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Laila is most concentrated in Nevada (2.4×), Maryland (1.9×), Florida (1.8×), Delaware (1.7×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2008
The most popular girls’ names the year Laila peaked:
Laila elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Norway girls | Laila | 9,513 | 27th |
| England and Wales girls | Laila | 6,975 | 95th |
| France girls | Laila +1 spelling | 6,425 | 238th |
| Italy girls | Laila | 1,344 | — |
| Switzerland girls | Laila | 729 | 172nd |
| Poland girls | Laila | 484 birth registrations | 202nd |
| Belgium girls | Laila +1 spelling | 445 | 498th |
| Scotland girls | Laila | 432 | 96th |
| Ireland girls | Laila | 272 | 169th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Laila | 49 | 247th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Laila: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Laila | 655 | 0.053% | 124th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Laila | 43 | 0.010% | 302nd |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Laila | 23 | 0.035% | 64th |
| Romansh girls | Switzerland | Laila | 8 | 0.215% | 2nd |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Laila is most concentrated in Graubünden, where 0.11% of children were given it – 41 of them.
Laila: rank by region
In 2025, Laila was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Laila | 753 | 6 |
In 2015, Laila was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Laila | 10 | 1 |
In 2025, Laila was given 2 times or more in 8 regions of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dolnośląskie | Laila | 169 | 4 |
| Kujawsko-Pomorskie | Laila | 167 | 2 |
| Łódzkie | Laila | 188 | 2 |
| Mazowieckie | Laila | 217 | 5 |
| Opolskie | Laila | 123 | 2 |
| Pomorskie | Laila | 209 | 2 |
| Wielkopolskie | Laila | 165 | 5 |
| Zachodniopomorskie | Laila | 148 | 3 |
In 2024, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Laila appears in the lists for Brussels-Capital Region (241st).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Laila by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 103 | 137th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Laila among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Laila | 2,960 | 3,635 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Laila lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 6,378 women called Laila were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Melilla | Laila | 186 | 4.296 | 47 |
| Ceuta | Laila | 159 | 3.839 | 50 |
| Almería | Laila | 220 | 0.583 | 238 |
| Girona | Laila | 219 | 0.529 | 257 |
| Tarragona | Laila | 220 | 0.503 | 280 |
| Lleida | Laila | 103 | 0.462 | 278 |
Listed in 52 of Spain's 52 provinces. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Laila against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.