Hala

given name · Arabic · Latin script

Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Hala is a given name, most frequently recorded in India. In Syria it is the 59th most common given name. It appears chiefly in Arabic and Hindi, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: halo, ring, glory. Wife of Abdul Muttalib, grandfather of Muhammad (s).*° See Dara (A).

rarermore common
  • SYSyria1 in 736◐
  • KWKuwait1 in 1.4K
  • EGEgypt1 in 1.4K

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈39K ●

across 9 countries

6 ●

recorded for this name

Sources
256 ●

356K records

Official registry-verified

1 in 3.4K ◐

Finland

Spellings & scripts●

NiluLatin · Hindi●265K records
নিলBengali · Bangla●1.6K records
นิละThai · Thai●186 records
ᲜილაGeorgian · Georgian●142 records
නිලSinhala · Sinhala●2 records
할라Hangul · Korean●1 records

6 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Nilo in PH Philippines, NO Norway, Nilu in IN India, Nil in NG Nigeria and Nill in BD Bangladesh.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin●

halo, ring, glory. Wife of Abdul Muttalib, grandfather of Muhammad (s).*° See Dara (A)

Sources 1

  • A Dictionary of Muslim Names

Attested across 11 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Hala is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
IN India#823454,971213K rec.—1.4KNilu117
SY Syria#5945,24947K rec.—1Hala51
NG Nigeria#15742,542309 rec.——Nil16
EG Egypt#17927,8699.9K rec.—listedHala115
BR Brazil—14,297△202 rec.1 in 15K19KHala32
ES Spain—12,328△746 rec.1 in 4.1K12KHala43
TR Türkiye—10,18910K rec.——Hala32
BD Bangladesh#4235,4567.2K rec.——Nill38
US United States—5,45132K rec.1 in 61K5.5KHala256
SA Saudi Arabia#2773,9611.6K rec.——Hala110
EC Ecuador—2,521△5 rec.1 in 6.7K2.5K—5
JO Jordan#3002,3701.6K rec.——Hala93

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • Arabic95K51%
  • Hindi30K16%
  • English17K9%
  • Turkish7.4K4%
  • French4.1K2%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
Arabic95,28151%
Hindi30,18816%
English16,7199%
Turkish7,3914%
French4,1282%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Hala is also recorded as 8 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Polish given name13K records spelled Hala5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Poland, United States, Czechia, Syria

    Languages: Polish, Czech, Slovak

    Also written Hála, Haľa

  • a separate given name2.8K records spelled Hala9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States, Iraq, Morocco

    Also written Hála, Hàla, Hālā, Ḥala, Halā

  • Norwegian Bokmål given name1.9K records spelled Hala10 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Norway, Denmark, India, United States

    Languages: Norwegian Bokmål, Danish, Swedish

    Also written Hålâ, Hålå, Hälà, Hålà

  • Amharic given name844 records spelled Hala3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States, Türkiye, Syria

    Also written ሀላ, ኃላ

  • Russian surname790 records spelled Hala9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Russia, Syria, Türkiye, Ukraine

    Also written Хала, Xala, Кхала, Khala, Hála

  • Ukrainian surname675 records spelled Hala8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Ukraine, Russia, Syria, India

    Languages: Ukrainian, Belarusian

    Also written Хала, Hâla, Xala, Hála, Hàlä

  • Bulgarian given name447 records spelled Hala20 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, Syria, Türkiye, United States

    Languages: Bulgarian, Croatian, Slovenian

    Also written Хала, Hälä, Hāla, Halā, Hälâ

  • Bangla surname440 records spelled Hala25 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, India, Türkiye

    Languages: Bangla, Odia, Assamese

    Also written Hall, Hal, Hul, হল, হাল

41 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●

Hala 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.

  • In Arabic, halo, ring around the eye, aureole; sister of Khadija

    as a nameA Dictionary of Muslim Names

  • Ancient name meaning ‘halo (around the moon)’.

    as a nameA concise dictionary of first names

  • In English, Pandanus tectorius, a screw pine native to Malesia, eastern Australia, and the Pacific Islands.

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

  • Toledo; before 1492

    as a nameDicionario Sefaradi De SobrenomesDictionary Of Sephardic Surnames Inclusive Cristaos-Novos, Conversos, Marranos, Italianos,…

  • In Swedish, Hala är ett arabiskt namn som betyder ’strålkrans (kring månen)’.

    as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon

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.

Over time●

02040608019001950200070 · 2011

Show as table
Hala in SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present), United States, 1887–2025
Yearrecords
18875
19197
19236
19245
19515
196010
19635
19696
19707
19715
197312
197410
19768
19776
19788
197915
198012
198110
198212
198314
198412
198517
198616
198712
198815
198917
199020
199123
199217
199318
199430
199519
199624
199729
199834
199933
200040
200144
200231
200339
200435
200538
200656
200749
200851
200969
201064
201170
201266
201357
201460
201548
201662
201763
201853
201948
202049
202139
202244
202338
202446
202557

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 62 years between 1887–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

19401960198020002020Hélé Béji, b. 1948Hala Gorani, b. 1970Princess Hala bint D'aij Al Khalifa, b. 1971Hala Hussein, b. 1972Hala Ayala, b. 1973Léa Salamé, b. 1979Hala Misrati, b. 1980Hala Alyan, b. 1986Hala Finley, b. 2009

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).

Evidence●

Attested in 75 sources across 39 countries.

Official registers attesting Hala
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex20204.2K#4,448
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—1.5K#1,281
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)20201.4K—
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—874#1,792
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—415#5,193
ES SpainINE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—346#2,727
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020321#66,499
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010311#64,054
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)2025295—
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000283#65,492
DK DenmarkDanmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts)—262#865
XK KosovoASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search)—244#1,876

Reference works 4

  • 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)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 654 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Hala?
We estimate roughly 39 thousand people bear Hala (counting its spellings and scripts) across 9 countries in our records.
In which country does Hala have the most bearers?
Hala is most frequently recorded in India, where it is most often spelled nilu.
How common is Hala compared with other names?
In India, Hala is the 823rd most common given name of 4,777,337 given names recorded there.
Is Hala a male or female name?
Hala 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.
What does the name Hala mean?
Recorded meaning: halo, ring, glory. Wife of Abdul Muttalib, grandfather of Muhammad (s).*° See Dara (A)
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/hala

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.

About this data

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.

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, “Hala” — the 823rd most common given name in India. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Hala parses inside a full name →