Leila

The name Leila is a girl's name of Arabic, Persian origin meaning "night". Leila was popularized in the West by the poet Byron, who used it in his poem Don Juan for a ten-year-old Turkish girl. Leila also appears as a fairy in the Gilbert & Sullivan comic opera Iolanthe. The haunting Leila been chosen by such celebs as Al Roker and Greta Scacchi and Vincent D'Onofrio. While Leila has managed to appear on the Top 1000 list in the U.S. since its inception in 1880, phonetic form Layla is now much higher on the list in America. And parents attracted to girls’ names with the double l sound will find that most examples -- from Leila to Lila to Lily and Lillian and Lilith-- are zooming up the charts and, while classics, are bordering on trendiness. Yet another alternative is Lelia, a Latin name used in Roman times.