BabyNameScore

Name profile

Mila

feminine

90First-name usabilityHighly workable
Evidence coverageHigh

This reflects the first name on its own. The full-name report scores the complete combination separately.

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Primarily documented as Slavic, from the root element milu/milŭ ('gracious, dear'); additional lower-confidence lanes are reported by secondary sources for Spanish, Arabic, Turkish, Berber, and Tibetan usage.

Why it works

  • English speakers will almost certainly pronounce it correctly on the first try
  • spelling is short and predictable — rarely needs repeating

What to know

pronunciation varies somewhat by language — see "How it travels" for the specifics

Popularity

Popular — #43 in the latest U.S. ranking.

Meaning and origin

Mila means gracious, dear (via the Slavic root milu/milŭ), when the name is treated in its best-documented Slavic short-form lane. This meaning is inherited from the longer milu-root names Mila historically abbreviated, not an independently coined meaning for 'Mila' itself.

Mila carries strong contemporary associations with Slavic (particularly Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Slovenian, Ukrainian, and Russian) naming traditions, where it remains recognizable as a pet form rather than a formal register name in many of those cultures, alongside its newer role as a stand-alone Western given name.

Documented origin: Primarily documented as Slavic, from the root element milu/milŭ ('gracious, dear'); additional lower-confidence lanes are reported by secondary sources for Spanish, Arabic, Turkish, Berber, and Tibetan usage.

Documented as a variant or related form of another name.

How it travels

English and Turkish are shown by default; German is included when it adds a meaningfully different reading.

EnglishMEE-lahresearched pronunciation
TurkishEnglish tends to reduce unstressed vowels; Turkish pronounces vowels at full value, so the ending may sound crisper to Turkish speakers than to English speakers.deterministic phonetic analysis
GermanEnglish tends to reduce unstressed vowels; German pronounces vowels at full value, so the ending may sound crisper to German speakers than to English speakers.deterministic phonetic analysis

Spelling stability: high — based on letter-pattern analysis, not a documented linguistic fact.

Also documented

MEE-lah — most commonly reported US/UK pronunciation

MY-lah — informal variant sometimes used, occasionally conflated with the distinct name 'Myla'

MIL-ah — reported as the typical Australian pronunciation, including for actress Mila Kunis, versus 'MEE-la' used on American shows

Popularity without panic

Popular — #43 in the latest U.S. ranking.

Well-liked and easy to place — most people will know it.

Full-name check

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No account required. Your report gets a private, unlisted link — it's never added to Mila's public name page, and surnames are never shown publicly.

Real-world considerations

  • Popular — #43 in the latest U.S. ranking.
  • Spelling note: Myla (distinct spelling, different vowel, sometimes used interchangeably in casual conversation).
Explore alternatives
Milena

Documented as a related name or variant form.

Milana

Documented as a related name or variant form.

Milada

Documented as a related name or variant form.