Lila

given name · Hindi · Latin script

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

Lila is a given name, most frequently recorded in India. It appears chiefly in Hindi and English, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Name used in several languages; often from Arabic Layla or as a diminutive of names like Liliane.

rarermore common
  • INIndia1 in 2.3K◐
  • TMTurkmenistan1 in 3.4K
  • USUnited States1 in 5K

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

≈139K ●

across 12 countries

6 ●

recorded for this name

Sources
249 ●

613K records

Official registry-verified

1 in 437 ◐

Hungary

Spellings & scripts●

LeelaLatin · Hindi●935K records
ลีลาThai · Thai●3.5K records
리라Hangul · Korean●2.3K records
ᲚილაGeorgian · Georgian●30 records
ΛίλαGreek · Greek●22 records
లలTelugu · Telugu●0 records

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Leela in IN India, US United States, PL Poland and 8 more, ลีลา in TH Thailand, 리라 in KR South Korea and Lula in LA Laos.

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●

Name used in several languages; often from Arabic Layla or as a diminutive of names like Liliane.

Sources 1

  • Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

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

Where Lila is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
IN India#2171,442,703565K rec.—6.3KLeela150
US United States—66,558△24K rec.1 in 5K67KLeela249
HU Hungary—22,371—1 in 43722K——
FR France—18,890△1 rec.1 in 3.6K19K—1
EC Ecuador—11,006△32 rec.1 in 1.5K11K—4
BR Brazil—7,413△1 rec.1 in 29K12K—2
TH Thailand—5,8073.5K rec.—#197,291ลีลา65
PL Poland—4,715△13 rec.1 in 8.1K4.7KLeela6
ID Indonesia—3,493876 rec.—listedLila99
SE Sweden—3,233△168 rec.1 in 3.2K3.2K—6
KR South Korea—2,4981.3K rec.——리라21
MY Malaysia—2,0351.6K rec.——Leela28

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

Languages●

  • Hindi376K32%
  • English266K23%
  • Spanish144K12%
  • French104K9%
  • Portuguese43K4%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
Hindi375,64332%
English266,24723%
Spanish144,33612%
French104,3769%
Portuguese43,4224%

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◐

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

  • English given name316K records spelled Lila24 spellings in the group

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

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Lil-A, Li-La, Līlā, Lilâ, Lílá

  • Spanish given name213K records spelled Lila39 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Venezuela

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Italian

    Also written Lilá, Lilă, Lîlä, Lïlä, Ĺiĺa

  • a separate given name43K records spelled Lila7 spellings in the group

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

    Also written Līlā, Líla, Lilā, Līla, Lilă

  • Polish given name26K records spelled Lila41 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Poland, United States, Russia, Ukraine

    Languages: Polish, Russian, Czech

    Also written Лила, Ліла, Leela, Lilla, Лйла

  • Finnish given name7.6K records spelled Lila10 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Finland, India, United States, Hungary

    Languages: Finnish, Hungarian, Estonian

    Also written Lilä, Lïlä, Līlã, Lįlä, Lílá

  • Chinese given name6.6K records spelled Lila13 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States, Taiwan, China

    Languages: Chinese, Burmese

    Also written Lilah, Li-La, Lîlã, Lílah, Lîlàh

48 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●

Lila 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, The play of god’s spirit manifested in the universe; divine play, creative spiritual energy.

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

  • In Spanish, lilac (flower)

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

  • In French, Probable diminutif de Liliane; origine latine, « lis ».

    as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

  • — žr. Lilius

    as a nameLietuvių pavardžių žodynas (Dictionary of Lithuanian Surnames)

  • Krsna (N)

    as a nameSunama Sarit (Hindi) Ten Thousand Sanskrit 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●

05001K1.5K2K1900195020002K · 2010

Show as table
Lila in SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present), United States, 1880–2025
Yearrecords
188036
188142
188265
188369
188473
188562
188669
188774
188888
1889113
1890120
1891128
1892147
1893167
1894161
1895175
1896201
1897176
1898208
1899190
1900268
1901181
1902239
1903206
1904259
1905211
1906242
1907218
1908254
1909259
1910311
1911302
1912396
1913430
1914561
1915684
1916708
1917678
1918748
1919749
1920840
1921894
1922919
19231,064
19241,053
19251,248
19261,085
19271,059
19281,034
19291,108
19301,203
1931995
1932949
1933859
1934844
1935753
1936646
1937578
1938531
1939482
1940529
1941522
1942482
1943487
1944414
1945368
1946386
1947411
1948421
1949388
1950351
1951363
1952414
1953340
1954359
1955355
1956428
1957362
1958293
1959304
1960291
1961263
1962195
1963234
1964227
1965167
1966146
1967126
1968115
1969141
1970123
1971112
1972132
1973135
1974148
1975103
1976112
1977118
1978114
1979137
1980150
1981149
1982148
1983123
198498
1985132
1986114
1987112
1988103
1989126
1990125
1991134
1992109
1993106
1994139
1995124
1996131
1997156
1998224
1999312
2000307
2001394
2002414
2003492
2004599
2005680
20061,006
20071,357
20081,852
20091,935
20101,969
20111,921
20121,728
20131,703
20141,776
20151,658
20161,561
20171,474
20181,405
20191,373
20201,298
20211,341
20221,354
20231,401
20241,482
20251,670

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 146 years between 1880–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

1850190019502000Lila Bell Wallace, b. 1889Lila Lee, b. 1901Lila Kedrova, b. 1909Lila Kaye, b. 1929Diane Sawyer, b. 1945Lila Abu-Lughod, b. 1952Lila Downs, b. 1968Lila Tretikov, b. 1978Lila Avilés, b. 1982Lila Kari, b. 2000
  • Lila Bell Wallaceb. 1889USAmerican publisher and art collector (1889–1984)
  • Lila Leeb. 1901USprominent screen actress of the silent film era (1901-1973)
  • Lila Kedrovab. 1909FRactress (1909–2000)
  • Lila Kayeb. 1929GBBritish actress (1929-2012)
  • Diane Sawyerb. 1945USnot in their usual nameAmerican journalist
  • Lila Abu-Lughodb. 1952USPalestinian-American anthropologist
  • Lila Downsb. 1968MXMexican-American singer-songwriter
  • Lila Tretikovb. 1978RURussian–American engineer, manager and former executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation
  • Lila Avilésb. 1982MXMexican film director
  • Lila Karib. 2000CARomanian and Canadian computer scientist

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 112 sources across 57 countries.

Official registers attesting Lila
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202043K#997
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024)202419K#80
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names)—4.2K#280
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20)20264.2K#280
BR BrazilIBGE — Nomes (census name API)—2.5K#5,246
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)20222.2K—
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—2.2K#4,830
EC EcuadorINEC — civil registry names20241.7K#674
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)20251.7K—
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—1.3K#1,401
FI FinlandDVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register)—1.2K—
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—855#3,176

Reference works 7

  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Lietuvių kalbos institutas — Lietuvių pavardžių žodynas (Lithuanian surname dictionary)
  • Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
  • Lietuvių pavardžių žodynas (Dictionary of Lithuanian Surnames)

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

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 1,300 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Lila?
We estimate roughly 139 thousand people bear Lila (counting its spellings and scripts) across 12 countries in our records.
In which country does Lila have the most bearers?
Lila is most frequently recorded in India, where it is most often spelled leela.
Where is Lila most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Lila is densest in Hungary — about 1 in 437 people — even though India holds more of our records for it.
How common is Lila compared with other names?
In India, Lila is the 217th most common given name of 4,777,337 given names recorded there.
Is Lila a male or female name?
Lila 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 Lila mean?
Recorded meaning: Name used in several languages; often from Arabic Layla or as a diminutive of names like Liliane.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/lila

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, “Lila” — the 217th most common given name in India. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Lila parses inside a full name →