Lilja

Spellings & scripts●

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●

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◐

Lilja is also recorded as another name, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

• Spanish given name1.2K records spelled Lilja4 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Brazil, United States, Finland, Nicaragua

  Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

  Also written Lilją

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●

Lilja 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 Finnish, lily (flower)

  as a word·kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

• In Icelandic, lily

  as a word·kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

• In Swedish, Namnet Lilja är lika med växtbenämningen lilja och motsvarar engelska lily, → Lilly som är ett populärt namn idag. I den finlandssvenska almanackan 20 maj.

  as a name·Förnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon

• In German, weibl. Vom. zu schwed. lilja »Lilie«.

  as a name·DUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen

• In Norwegian Bokmål, definite feminine singular of lilje

  as a word·kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

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●

NO SSB — Navn (1880–present) — 31 years between 1977–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

• Tyyne Leivo-Larssonb. 1902FInot in their usual nameFinnish politician, Esperantist and diplomat (1902–1977)
• Lilja Rafney Magnúsdóttirb. 1957ISIcelandic politician
• Lilja Mósesdóttirb. 1961ISIcelandic politician
• Lilja Pálmadóttirb. 1967film producer
• Lilja Sigurðardóttirb. 1972ISIcelandic writer
• Lilja Dögg Alfreðsdóttirb. 1973ISIcelandic Minister of Education, Science and Culture 2017-
• Lilja Nótt Þórarinsdóttirb. 1979ISIcelandic actor
• Lilja Löfflerb. 1981DEGerman actress
• María Lilja Þrastardóttirb. 1986ISIcelandic journalist, author and feminist campaigner
• Lilja PesonenFIFinnish actor

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 · 298 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Lilja?

We estimate roughly 724 thousand people bear Lilja (counting its spellings and scripts) across 10 countries in our records.

In which country does Lilja have the most bearers?

Lilja is most frequently recorded in China, where it is most often spelled li.

How common is Lilja compared with other names?

In China, Lilja is the 5th most common surname of 134,008 surnames recorded there.

Is Lilja a male or female name?

Lilja 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 Lilja mean?

Recorded meaning: ornamental name from Swedish lilja ‘lily’.