Layla

given name · Portuguese · Latin script

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

Layla is a given name, most frequently recorded in China, where it is the 5th most common surname. It appears chiefly in Portuguese and English, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: ‘Wine’ or ‘intoxication’; name of the beloved of the poet Qays ibnal-Mulawwa (d.

rarermore common
  • CNChina1 in 24◐
  • SGSingapore1 in 179
  • AUAustralia1 in 207

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

≈724K ●

across 10 countries

#6 ●

of 21M surnames

9 ●

recorded for this name

Sources
596 ●

31M records

Official registry-verified

1 in 480 ◐

United States

Spellings & scripts●

LiLatin · English●102M records
ЛилияCyrillic · Russian●2.4M records
ליליHebrew · Hebrew●38K records
ᲚეილაGeorgian · Georgian●35K records
ไลลาThai · Thai●3.9K records
리리Hangul · Korean●303 records
ԼիլիArmenian · Armenian●108 records
ΛιληGreek · Greek●85 records
ለኢላEthiopic · Amharic●27 records

7 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Lee in US United States, KR South Korea, GB United Kingdom and 7 more, Li in CN China, FR France, ES Spain, Leila in BR Brazil, AR Argentina, GE Georgia and Lili in HU Hungary, PE Peru, MX Mexico.

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●

‘Wine’ or ‘intoxication’; name of the beloved of the poet Qays ibnal-Mulawwa (d. 688).

Sources 1

  • A concise dictionary of first names

Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

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

Where Layla is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China#5101,219,573153K rec.—listedLi233
RU Russia—2,580,756960K rec.—#48Лилия168
TR Türkiye—1,273,5971.3M rec.—185KLeyla103
UA Ukraine—1,060,6701.1M rec.—listedЛілія64
GB United Kingdom#468749,4161.2M rec.—2.2KLee310
US United States#286693,02322M rec.1 in 480696KLee596
AU Australia#40519,846747K rec.—741Lee332
CA Canada#74253,434496K rec.—102Lee275
HU Hungary—209,5362.4K rec.—21KLili126
MY Malaysia#115209,005372K rec.—2.9KLee201
DE Germany#272125,300170K rec.—10Lee200
GE Georgia—117,12435K rec.—16KLeila39

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

Languages●

  • Portuguese185K43%
  • English128K30%
  • Spanish27K6%
  • Arabic21K5%
  • French17K4%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
Portuguese184,98643%
English128,08330%
Spanish27,1886%
Arabic21,0115%
French17,2964%

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◐

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

  • English given name157K records spelled Layla32 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Australia, Brazil, Canada

    Languages: English, German, Western Frisian

    Also written Laeyla, Làyla, Laÿla, Lãylą, Läýľä

  • Indonesian given name4.1K records spelled Layla5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Indonesia, Malaysia, United States, Morocco

    Languages: Indonesian, Malay

    Also written 'Layla, Ĺâýla, Laylá

  • Turkish given name3.6K records spelled Layla5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Türkiye, Iraq, Syria, United States

    Languages: Turkish, Azerbaijani, Uzbek

    Also written Laylá

  • a separate given name2.9K records spelled Layla5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, India, Morocco, Ethiopia

    Also written Lay-La, Laylá, Laylā, Láyla

  • Finnish given name1.1K records spelled Layla6 spellings in the group

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

    Languages: Finnish, Estonian

    Also written Läÿlå, Lâylá, Lãylã, Läylä

  • Italian given name316 records spelled Layla2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Italy, Spain

    Also written Laylã

50 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●

Layla 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 English, A female given name from Arabic, variant of Leila.

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

  • Born at night

    as a nameThe book of African names

  • In Arabic, night

    as a nameAfrican Muslim Names

  • In English, Arabic; as intoxicating as wine

    as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…

  • In Swahili, Swahili/Muslim: born at night.

    as a nameAfrican Names

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●

05010015019401960198020002020129 · 2014

Show as table
Layla in INEC — Visualizador de Nombres y Apellidos, per-token query API (1900–2024), Ecuador, 1940–2024
Yearrecords
19401
19461
19621
19642
19651
19663
19673
19682
19691
19702
19719
19723
19735
19741
19752
19764
19774
19783
19795
19803
19816
19822
19832
19842
19852
19864
19876
19886
19893
19904
19915
19924
19936
19944
19958
19969
199714
199819
199916
200010
200118
200212
200322
200421
200512
200625
200719
200820
200926
201033
201149
201274
201366
2014129
2015101
201688
2017106
2018100
201971
202093
2021108
2022109
202388
202483

EC INEC — Visualizador de Nombres y Apellidos, per-token query API (1900–2024) — 64 years between 1940–2024. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

190019502000Leila Hyams, b. 1905Leila Abashidze, b. 1929Leila Forouhar, b. 1959Leila Meskhi, b. 1968Leila Pahlavi, b. 1970Leila Hatami, b. 1972Laïla Marrakchi, b. 1975Layla El, b. 1977Leila Lopes, b. 1986Leila George, b. 1992
  • Leila Hyamsb. 1905USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress (1905-1977)
  • Leila Abashidzeb. 1929GEnot in their usual nameGeorgian actress, film director, and writer (1929-2018)
  • Leila Forouharb. 1959IRnot in their usual nameIranian actress and singer
  • Leila Meskhib. 1968GEnot in their usual nameGeorgian female tennis player
  • Leila Pahlavib. 1970IRnot in their usual nameIranian princess (1970-2001)
  • Leila Hatamib. 1972IRnot in their usual nameIranian actress
  • Laïla Marrakchib. 1975MAnot in their usual nameMoroccan film director and screenwriter
  • Layla Elb. 1977GBBritish professional wrestler, dancer, and model
  • Leila Lopesb. 1986AOnot in their usual nameAngolan beauty pageant titleholder
  • Leila Georgeb. 1992AUnot in their usual nameAustralian actress

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 102 sources across 56 countries.

Official registers attesting Layla
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202085K#620
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)202221K—
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—20K#1,043
BR BrazilIBGE — Nomes (census name API)—6K#2,991
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)20255.3K—
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)20204.7K—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024)20242.5K#422
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—2.3K#1,565
ES SpainINE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—1.9K#898
EC EcuadorINEC — civil registry names20241.7K#698
NL NetherlandsMeertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017)—1.2K#1,876
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—809#1,981

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 · 893 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Layla?
We estimate roughly 724 thousand people bear Layla (counting its spellings and scripts) across 10 countries in our records.
In which country does Layla have the most bearers?
Layla is most frequently recorded in China, where it is most often spelled li.
How common is Layla compared with other names?
In China, Layla is the 5th most common surname of 134,008 surnames recorded there.
Is Layla a male or female name?
Layla is a female 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 Layla mean?
Recorded meaning: ‘Wine’ or ‘intoxication’; name of the beloved of the poet Qays ibnal-Mulawwa (d.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/layla

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, “Layla” — the 5th most common surname in China. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Layla parses inside a full name →