Leia
Leia reached its high-water mark in 2023 at number 211, and has been recorded 18,778 times in all. In 2025 it ranked 297th. About 19,000 Leias are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 8.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Leia
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 18,778
- Estimated living today
- 19,000
- Median age today
- 8
- Peak year
- 2023
- Best rank
- 211th
- Rank in 2025
- 297th
- First recorded
- 1949
How old the living Leias are
born that year still alive today
Of the 18,778 babies given the name since 1949, about 19,000 are alive — 99 in every hundred. Roughly 15,000 of them are children and 20 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2017 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 a coined name
From the name of a princess in the American fantasy film Star Wars (1977).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Leias
- Leia Dongue (born 1991)Mozambican basketball player
People named Leia with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Leia is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Leia is most concentrated in Hawaii (4.9×), Nevada (3.6×), Arizona (2.4×), California (2.3×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2023
The most popular girls’ names the year Leia peaked:
Leia elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France girls | Leïa +3 spellings | 5,670 | 237th |
| Sweden girls | Leia | 4,080 | 28th |
| England and Wales girls | Leia | 2,663 | 272nd |
| Switzerland girls | Leia +2 spellings | 372 | 205th |
| Scotland girls | Leia | 359 | 210th |
| Belgium girls | Leia +1 spelling | 258 | 412th |
| Ireland girls | Leia | 171 | 304th |
| Poland girls | Leia | 88 birth registrations | 272nd |
| Northern Ireland girls | Leia | 66 | 245th |
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.
Leia: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Leia | 239 | 0.019% | 175th |
| German girls | Switzerland | Leïa | 7 | 0.001% | 1,346th |
| German girls | Switzerland | Léia | 2 | 0.000% | 1,319th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Leia | 72 | 0.017% | 269th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Leïa | 36 | 0.008% | 223rd |
| French girls | Switzerland | Léia | 11 | 0.003% | 683rd |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Leia | 5 | 0.008% | 104th |
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, Leia is most concentrated in Aargau, where 0.03% of children were given it – 35 of them.
Leia: rank by region
In 2025, Leia was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Leia | 303 | 18 |
In 2025, Leia was given 2 times or more in 3 regions of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dolnośląskie | Leia | 190 | 3 |
| Łódzkie | Leia | 188 | 2 |
| Mazowieckie | Leia | 326 | 2 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Leia appears in the lists for Province of Limburg (117th) and Province of Flemish Brabant (164th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, 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.
Leia by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 42 | 299th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Leia 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 | Leia | 150 | 231 |
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 Leia lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 1,672 women called Leia 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 | Leia | 7 | 0.162 | 672 |
| Barcelona | Leia | 414 | 0.136 | 581 |
| Tarragona | Leia | 52 | 0.119 | 724 |
| Girona | Leia | 45 | 0.109 | 756 |
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Leia | 56 | 0.101 | 932 |
| Balears, Illes | Leia | 59 | 0.094 | 818 |
Listed in 40 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 12 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Leia 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.