Lillian
Lillian is a girl's name that peaked in 1920, when it was the 18th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 57th. About 205,000 Lillians are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 17.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Lillian boys named Lillian
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 476,457
- Estimated living today
- 205,000
- Median age today
- 17
- Peak year
- 1920
- Best rank
- 18th
- Rank in 2025
- 57th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 475,028 / 1,429
How old the living Lillians are
born that year still alive today
Of the 476,457 babies given the name since 1880, about 205,000 are alive — 43 in every hundred. Roughly 103,000 of them are children and 37,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2008 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 Latin
Used since the sixteenth century, possibly originally a pet form of Elizabeth, but generally accepted as a variant of Late Latin lilium (“lily”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Lillians
- Lillian Gish (1893–1993)American actress
- Lillian Hellman (1905–1984)American dramatist and screenwriter
- Lillian Moller Gilbreth (1878–1972)American psychologist and industrial engineer
- Lillian Wald (1867–1940)American nurse and activist
- Lillian Copeland (1904–1964)athletics competitor
- Lillian Roth (1910–1980)American actress, singer
- Lillian Asplund (1906–2006)One of the last three living survivors:RMS Titanic on April 15, 1912
- Lillian Russell (1861–1922)American opera singer and actress
People named Lillian with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Lillian is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Lillian is most concentrated in Vermont (1.7×), Rhode Island (1.6×), New Hampshire (1.6×), North Dakota (1.6×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1920
The most popular girls’ names the year Lillian peaked:
Lillian elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Norway girls | Lillian | 5,281 | 41st |
| England and Wales girls | Lillian | 3,274 | 274th |
| Ireland girls | Lillian | 501 | 251st |
| France boys | Lillian | 255 | 1,068th |
| Scotland girls | Lillian | 216 | 306th |
| Switzerland girls | Lillian | 61 | 795th |
| Poland girls | Lillian | 61 birth registrations | 317th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Lillian | 14 | 336th |
| France girls | Lillian | 10 | 6,216th |
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.
Lillian: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Lillian | 50 | 0.004% | 642nd |
| French girls | Switzerland | Lillian | 10 | 0.002% | 578th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Lillian | 1 | 0.002% | 183rd |
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.
Lillian: rank by region
In 2023, Lillian was given 2 times or more in 1 region of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mazowieckie | Lillian | 318 | 2 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – 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.
Lillian by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 12 | 351st |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Lillian 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 | Lillian | 84 | 182 |
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.
Related names
Lillian 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.