Lelah
#9,822 in 2025Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Lelah has been given to 2,187 babies in the U.S. since 1881. In 2025 it ranked #9,822 of 17,293 girls’ names in use. Its peak year was 1915, with 43 recorded.
Babies named Lelah, 2025
1 in 332,000
Lelah over time, 1880–2025
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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Lelah?
Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.
- Among all babies, 2025
- 1 in 332,000
- 10 of 3,315,165 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 161,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 2025
- #9,822
- of 17,293 girls’ names in use
- Coin-flip room size
- 229,791 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Lelah sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 2025 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 229,791 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Lelah. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Lelahs were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Lelah was born before 1923 — so the typical Lelah is around 102 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1910s
- 14.1% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 19.2%
- Spread across generations
- Recorded since 1950
- 673
- People you could plausibly meet
1910s — 14.1% of all recorded uses (309).
Is Lelah 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
- +912
- Places climbed
- Rank vs 5 years ago
- −2,735
- Places dropped
- Rank vs 10 years ago
- −3,458
- Places dropped
- Births vs 10 years ago
- 0.50×
- Fewer babies than then
- Share of its own peak
- 23.3%
- Peak was 1915 (43)
- Years since peak
- 110
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Shifting
- 24.4% average annual change
Spellings of Lelah
Lelah is not the most common spelling — Leah is, with 20.3% against Lelah's 0.17%.
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 Lelah is used
Across 1910–2025, Lelah was most concentrated in Indiana — about 1 in 100,000 girls, against 1 in 475,859 across all states with data. It was least common in Ohio (1 in —).
Most concentrated
- 1Indiana1 in 100,000
- 2West Virginia1 in 100,000
- 3California1 in —
- 4Iowa1 in —
- 5Illinois1 in —
- 6Michigan1 in —
- 7Missouri1 in —
- 8Ohio1 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. Lelah has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Lelah around the world
Where Lelah ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.
- England & Wales2014–2018#5,666in 2018
- South Australia1997–1997#681in 1997
Popularity data from Office for National Statistics and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.
Lelah by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Lelah
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Names with a curve like Lelah
Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Lelah, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.
Sibling names for Lelah
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.