Leyla

given name · Turkish · Latin script

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

Leyla is a given name, most frequently recorded in China, where it is the 5th most common surname. It appears chiefly in Turkish and Kurdish, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: a female given name from Arabic which means "Dark (or dark-haired) beauty".

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

6 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●

a female given name from Arabic which means "Dark (or dark-haired) beauty"

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

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

Where Leyla 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●

  • Turkish1M69%
  • Kurdish185K12%
  • Spanish69K5%
  • English34K2%
  • Arabic28K2%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
Turkish1,041,85969%
Kurdish185,23012%
Spanish69,4825%
English34,2992%
Arabic27,8092%

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◐

Leyla is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish given name106K records spelled Leyla21 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Chile

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Italian

    Also written Lêylã, Leylä, Lëylä, Lêylâ, Leylà

  • French given name28K records spelled Leyla13 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, Spain, Belgium, Türkiye

    Languages: French, Catalan

    Also written Ley'La, Leÿla, Leylâ, Lëyla, Léyla

  • a separate given name2.4K records spelled Leyla3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Ethiopia, Türkiye, Iran

    Also written Leylâ, Leylā

  • a separate given name155 records spelled Leyla4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Kyrgyzstan, Türkiye, United States, Peru

    Also written Léylã, Lëylä, Lëÿlã

39 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●

Leyla is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • Bom late at night

    as a nameA Handbook of African 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●

05010015019502000103 · 2022

Show as table
Leyla in INEC — Visualizador de Nombres y Apellidos, per-token query API (1900–2024), Ecuador, 1902–2024
Yearrecords
19021
19191
19251
19261
19271
19322
19332
19351
19361
19371
19382
19391
19404
19411
19422
19432
19441
19453
19464
19471
19481
19491
19501
19512
19521
19532
19542
19552
19563
19572
19582
19592
19602
19616
19626
19634
19643
19653
19667
19677
19685
19694
197016
197113
197210
197312
19744
19753
197610
19775
197816
19796
19807
198112
198214
19837
198410
198513
198616
198714
198820
198915
199015
199120
199210
199318
199416
199515
199626
199715
199835
199935
200043
200122
200221
200325
200424
200532
200625
200727
200838
200930
201032
201137
201244
201334
201448
201541
201636
201796
201894
201969
202062
202172
2022103
202388
202490

EC INEC — Visualizador de Nombres y Apellidos, per-token query API (1900–2024) — 97 years between 1902–2024. 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. 1905Leyla Gencer, b. 1928Leyla Zana, b. 1961Leila Meskhi, b. 1968Leila Pahlavi, b. 1970Leila Hatami, b. 1972Leyla Əliyeva, b. 1985Leila Lopes, b. 1986Hazal Kaya, b. 1990Leila George, b. 1992
  • Leila Hyamsb. 1905USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress (1905-1977)
  • Leyla Gencerb. 1928TRTurkish opera singer (1924–2008)
  • Leyla Zanab. 1961TRTurkish statesperson (born 1961)
  • 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
  • Leyla Əliyevab. 1985AZAzerbaijani journalist
  • Leila Lopesb. 1986AOnot in their usual nameAngolan beauty pageant titleholder
  • Hazal Kayab. 1990TRnot in their usual nameTurkish actor (born 1990)
  • 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 86 sources across 47 countries.

Official registers attesting Leyla
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
TR TürkiyeTÜİK NIP — most used given names2025185K#19
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex20209.2K#2,595
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024)20243.6K#266
AZ AzerbaijanAzerbaijan Ministry of Justice — Civil Registry Name Statistics—2.4K—
EC EcuadorINEC — civil registry names20241.8K#671
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—1.6K#1,229
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—1.2K#2,575
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)20221.1K—
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—1.1K#7,527
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—1.1K#1,525
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)20201K—
ES SpainINE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—850#1,569

Reference works 3

  • 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 · 1,004 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Leyla?
We estimate roughly 724 thousand people bear Leyla (counting its spellings and scripts) across 10 countries in our records.
In which country does Leyla have the most bearers?
Leyla is most frequently recorded in China, where it is most often spelled li.
How common is Leyla compared with other names?
In China, Leyla is the 5th most common surname of 134,008 surnames recorded there.
Is Leyla a male or female name?
Leyla 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 Leyla mean?
Recorded meaning: a female given name from Arabic which means "Dark (or dark-haired) beauty"
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/leyla

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

See how Leyla parses inside a full name →