BabyNameScoreName profile
Layla
feminine
This reflects the first name on its own. The full-name report scores the complete combination separately.
Check it with a full name ↓Arabic, from layl/layla ('night'); the name's contemporary US prominence is additionally reinforced by a distinct 20th-century Anglophone pop-culture lane (the 1970 Eric Clapton/Derek and the Dominos song), which is a popularity driver rather than a separate etymology.
Why it works
- a well-established name with a clear, learnable pronunciation
- spelling is short and predictable — rarely needs repeating
What to know
pronounced "LAY-lah" — may invite a pronunciation check on first meeting
Popularity
Popular — #36 in the latest U.S. ranking.
Meaning and origin
Layla means 'Night' — the direct Arabic lexical meaning; sometimes extended poetically to 'dark beauty' or 'dark-haired,' which are interpretive glosses rather than literal translations.
Widely used as a first name across the Arab world, Iran, Turkey (Leyla), the Caucasus, and South Asia, typically carrying warm, poetic, romantic connotations tied to night imagery and the Layla-Majnun love story; in the contemporary US it now reads as a mainstream, broadly-usable name rather than a narrowly 'foreign' one.
Documented origin: Arabic, from layl/layla ('night'); the name's contemporary US prominence is additionally reinforced by a distinct 20th-century Anglophone pop-culture lane (the 1970 Eric Clapton/Derek and the Dominos song), which is a popularity driver rather than a separate etymology.
How it travels
English and Turkish are shown by default; German is included when it adds a meaningfully different reading.
Spelling stability: moderate — based on letter-pattern analysis, not a documented linguistic fact.
Also documented
/ˈleɪlə/ (LAY-luh) — standard US English rendering
/ˈliːlə/ (LEE-luh) — reported minority US variant
Arabic /ˈlajlaː/ (approx. LIE-laa) — source-language pronunciation of ليلى
Popularity without panic
Popular — #36 in the latest U.S. ranking.
Well-liked and easy to place — most people will know it.
Full-name check
This rhythm preview stays in your browser only — it's never sent anywhere unless you choose to generate a report below.
No account required. Your report gets a private, unlisted link — it's never added to Layla's public name page, and surnames are never shown publicly.
Real-world considerations
- Popular — #36 in the latest U.S. ranking.
- Spelling note: High — the same underlying name is commonly spelled at least half a dozen ways in Latin script (Layla, Leila, Laila, Leyla, Laylah, Leylah), and people frequently cannot recall or guess which spelling a given individual uses..
- The literal Arabic meaning ('night') is well established and not in scholarly dispute. What is less certain is the specific biography of the historical/legendary Layla al-Amiriyya — her exact dates and the factual details of her relationship with Qays ibn al-Mulawwah come down through a centuries-old oral and literary tradition, not a contemporaneous documentary record, so they should be treated as legend rather than verified history. This spelling ('Layla') is also treated in this dataset as its own distinct display-spelling identity, separate from related-root entries such as Leyla or Laylah that may exist elsewhere in this SSA-300 pack — same Arabic root, different source-identity records per this pack's Unicode/display-spelling rules.
Explore alternatives
Documented as a related name or variant form.
Documented as a related name or variant form.
Documented as a related name or variant form.