Ilyas

Spellings & scripts●

Locally spelled Elias in BR Brazil, AR Argentina, US United States and 13 more, Илья in RU Russia, KZ Kazakhstan, FI Finland and 1 more, Ілля in UA Ukraine and Iliyas in IN India.

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●

Attested across 14 languages in the etymology graph.

Languages●

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◐

Ilyas is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

• a separate given name59K records spelled Ilyas4 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in India, Pakistan, United States, Russia

  Also written Ilyās, Ílyas, Īlyās

• Indonesian given name44K records spelled Ilyas8 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco

  Languages: Indonesian, Malay

  Also written Ilyas', Ilyaş, 'Ilyas, Ilyâs

• Spanish given name15K records spelled Ilyas33 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Spain, Türkiye, United States, Argentina

  Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

  Also written Ilyàs, Ìlyas, Ilyâs, Īlýaś, Îlýàs

• Swahili given name5.1K records spelled Ilyas4 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Nigeria, India, United States, Morocco

  Languages: Swahili, Southern Sotho

  Also written Ilyaş, Ilyās

• Danish given name4.0K records spelled Ilyas15 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Denmark, Norway, Türkiye, United Kingdom

  Languages: Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Swedish

  Also written Îlỹåṧ, Ilyaş, Ìlyas, Īlÿās, Ïlÿãš

• Finnish given name1.7K records spelled Ilyas9 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Finland, Türkiye, Morocco, India

  Languages: Finnish, Estonian

  Also written Ilyaş, Îlÿãs, Ïlýãs, Ìlÿãs, Ïlyâs

47 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●

Ilyas 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 Turkish, 1. Kutsal kitaplarda adı geçen, yağmurlara hükmeden İsrail Peygamberi. 2. Mersin ağacı.

  as a word·TDK Kişi Adları Sözlüğü (official Turkish given-name dictionary)

• In Swedish, Ilyas är en arabisk och turkisk form av → Elias, och Ilias är den nygrekiska formen av samma namn. Båda stavningarna används i Sverige idag. Ilyas är en profet i Koranen.

  as a name·Förnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon

• In Arabic, Elias; the prophet Elijah.

  as a name·African Muslim Names

• In German, männl. Vom., arabische (Ilyäs) und türkische Form von

  as a name·DUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen

• high as God, great

  as a name·Muslim baby names (our 2,000 meaningful and beautiful names for boys and girls) English-Urdu with Roman

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●

IN naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls) — 89 years between 1914–2015. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

• Nizamib. 1141AZnot in their usual namePersian poet
• Elias Lönnrotb. 1802FInot in their usual nameFinnish physician, philologist and collector of traditional Finnish oral poetry (1802-1884)
• Walt Disneyb. 1901USnot in their usual nameAmerican animator, producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor and entrepreneur, founder of The Walt Disney Company (1901–1966)
• Elias Canettib. 1905BGnot in their usual nameBulgarian-born Swiss and British Jewish modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and non-fiction writer (1905–1994)
• Elia Kazanb. 1909USnot in their usual nameAmerican director and actor (1909–2003)
• Elias Menachem Steinb. 1931USnot in their usual nameAmerican mathematician (1931-2018)
• Michel Temerb. 1940BRnot in their usual name24th Vice-President of Brazil from 2011 to 2016 and 37th President of Brazil from 2016 to 2019
• Martin Seligmanb. 1942USnot in their usual nameAmerican psychologist and writer
• Elias Koteasb. 1961CAnot in their usual nameCanadian actor
• Mattéo Guendouzib. 1999FRnot in their usual nameFrench footballer (born 1999)

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●

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 638 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Ilyas?

We estimate roughly 461 thousand people bear Ilyas (counting its spellings and scripts) across 12 countries in our records.

In which country does Ilyas have the most bearers?

Ilyas is most frequently recorded in Russia, where it is most often spelled илья.

Where is Ilyas most common?

Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Ilyas is densest in Finland — about 1 in 188 people — even though Russia holds more of our records for it.

How common is Ilyas compared with other names?

In Russia, Ilyas is the 50th most common given name of 418,751 given names recorded there.

Is Ilyas a male or female name?

Ilyas is a male 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 does the name Ilyas mean?

Recorded meaning: a male given name from Arabic إِلْيَاس (ʔilyās)