Hilja

Girls' name

Possibly quiet, through Hilja

Hilja has been given to 81 babies in the U.S. since 1894. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1917, with 12 recorded.

Babies named Hilja, 1920

1 in 453,000

Hilja over time, 1880–2025

Girls

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Hilja: meaning, origin, and history

Possibly quiet, through Hilja

Finnish

What Hilja means

Hilja belongs to the name family reached through Hilja → Hilja. Its meaning is “quiet”.

Origin, language, and formation

Hilja is used in Estonian and Finnish. Its origins include Finnish.

Hilja comes through Finnish Hilja.

Hilja is a modern formation.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Hilja.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Finnish, Hilja is pronounced /ˈhiljɑ/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 81 girls were recorded with the name Hilja between 1894 and 1920. Its highest annual count was 12 in 1917; its best national rank was #1,566 in 1910.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Hilja?

Hilja had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1920, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1920: 1 in 453,000; 5 of 2,262,602 births
Among girls only: 1 in 240,000; <0.01% of girls
Rank, 1920: Unranked; Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size: 313,664 kids; Even odds of a second one

Where Hilja sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 1920 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%

Class of 30Under 1%

Grade of 100Under 1%

School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 313,664 children born in 1920 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Hilja. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Hiljas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Hilja was born before 1915 — so the typical Hilja is around 110 today.

Median birth year: 1915; About 110 years old
Biggest decade: 1910s; 66.7% of all use
Born in the last 25 years: 93.8%; A modern name
Recorded since 1950: 0; People you could plausibly meet

Choose a decade

1910s — 66.7% of all recorded uses (54).

Is Hilja rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago: —; Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago: New entry; Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago: —; Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago: —; Not published both years
Share of its own peak: 0%; Peak was 1917 (12)
Years since peak: 108; Years
Year-to-year steadiness: Volatile; 47.0% average annual change
Best rank ever: #1,566; 1910

Spellings of Hilja

Hilja is not the most common spelling — Wilma is, with 25.6% against Hilja's 0.01%.

Wilma25.6%140,101
Mila15.4%84,489
Hilda14.8%81,022
Lila14.0%76,493
Willa6.0%32,824
Ila4.6%25,060
Lilia2.6%14,314
Wilda2.3%12,759

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Hilja is used

Across 1910–2025, Hilja was most concentrated in Michigan — about 1 in — girls, against 1 in 1,215,656 across all states with data.

00 per 100,000

State popularity map

Most concentrated

1Michigan1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Hilja has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Hilja by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025: Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago: —
Best rank ever: #1,566; 1910
Peak year: 1917; 12 that year
First recorded: 1894
Last recorded: 1920
All-time count: 81
Count in 2025: Under 5

Names similar to Hilja

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

Hilal Hilton Hilah Hilde Hilinai Hiley Hildy Lilja Hili Hildi Hiliana Hilery Hilari Hila Hilder Hilla Hiliary Hilaree Hildie Hillis Hillory Hillari Hilaria Hilia

Sibling names for Hilja

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

For a sister

Albina Nelle Orpha Antonette Winnifred Maurine Johnie Dovie

For a brother

Regis Meyer Rosario Lyman Winfield Dorsey Granville Abe

Explore around Hilja

Top names of 1917, Hilja's peak year The 1910s in full Other names that peaked in 1910 Girls' names starting with H Finnish Girl Names