Leah
Leah reached its high-water mark in 2009 at number 29, and has been recorded 256,954 times in all. In 2025 it ranked 58th. About 233,000 Leahs are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 23.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Leah boys named Leah
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 256,954
- Estimated living today
- 233,000
- Median age today
- 23
- Peak year
- 2009
- Best rank
- 29th
- Rank in 2025
- 58th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 256,488 / 466
How old the living Leahs are
born that year still alive today
Of the 256,954 babies given the name since 1880, about 233,000 are alive — 91 in every hundred. Roughly 93,000 of them are children and 8,500 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2002 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Hebrew
From Hebrew לֵאָה.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Leahs
- Leah Goldberg (1911–1970)Israeli poet
- Leah Remini (born 1970)American actress
- Leah Williamson (born 1997)English footballer
- Leah Pipes (born 1988)American actress
- Leah Lewis (born 1996)American actress
- Leah Namugerwa (born 2004)Ugandan environmental activist
- Leah Dizon (born 1986)American singer and model
- Leah Behn (born 2005)second child of Princess Märtha Louise of Norway and Ari Behn
People named Leah with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Leah is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Leah is most concentrated in Alaska (1.5×), Nevada (1.4×), Florida (1.4×), Minnesota (1.3×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2009
The most popular girls’ names the year Leah peaked:
Leah elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales girls | Leah | 33,458 | 24th |
| Ireland girls | Leah | 8,426 | 9th |
| Sweden girls | Leah | 6,580 | 6th |
| Norway girls | Leah | 5,162 | 15th |
| Scotland girls | Leah | 4,748 | 14th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Leah | 2,480 | 10th |
| New Zealand girls | Leah | 2,134 | 48th |
| France girls | Leah +1 spelling | 1,625 | 638th |
| Belgium girls | Leah +1 spelling | 628 | 202nd |
| Switzerland girls | Leah | 375 | 257th |
| Poland girls | Leah | 161 birth registrations | 264th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Leah: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Leah | 308 | 0.025% | 252nd |
| French girls | Switzerland | Leah | 55 | 0.013% | 224th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Leah | 11 | 0.017% | 120th |
| Romansh girls | Switzerland | Leah | 1 | 0.027% | 10th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Leah is most concentrated in Zurich, where 0.04% of children were given it – 119 of them.
Leah: rank by region
In 2025, Leah was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Leah | 184 | 30 |
In 2019, Leah was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Leah | 10 | 1 |
In 2025, Leah was given 2 times or more in 1 region of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lubelskie | Leah | 124 | 3 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Leah appears in the lists for Province of Antwerp (108th), Province of Flemish Brabant (164th) and Province of West Flanders (186th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Leah by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 105 | 144th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Leah among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Leah | 162 | 213 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Leah lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 826 women called Leah were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Melilla | Leah | 5 | 0.115 | 817 |
| Balears, Illes | Leah | 54 | 0.086 | 872 |
| Zamora | Leah | 6 | 0.072 | 835 |
| Gipuzkoa | Leah | 23 | 0.061 | 1,075 |
| Alicante/Alacant | Leah | 57 | 0.055 | 1,248 |
| Barcelona | Leah | 145 | 0.048 | 1,232 |
Listed in 32 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 20 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Leah against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.