Ilai
Ilai was given to 23 boys in 2025, #4,447 among boys’ names; 253 Americans have been recorded with it since 2005 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Ilai by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
How popular is Ilai?
#4,447 among boys’ names, 2025
Ilai rose from #6,464 in 2015 to #4,447 in 2025 among boys’ names; its share of boys born rose from 6.8 to 13.5 per million.
40 babies in 2023, the peak
Ilai peaked in 2023, when 40 boys were given it, #3,078 among boys’ names. The 23 births of 2025 are 58% of that peak.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 23 | #4,447 | 13.5 |
| 2024 | 22 | #4,615 | 12.8 |
| 2023 | 40 | #3,078 | 23.4 |
| 2022 | 33 | #3,490 | 18.9 |
| 2021 | 11 | #7,282 | 6.3 |
| 2020 | 7 | #9,944 | 4.1 |
| 2019 | 6 | #11,292 | 3.3 |
| 2018 | 11 | #7,311 | 6.1 |
| 2017 | 7 | #10,105 | 3.8 |
| 2016 | 17 | #5,399 | 9.0 |
Every recorded year (19)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 13 | #6,464 | 6.8 |
| 2014 | 8 | #9,095 | 4.2 |
| 2012 | 6 | #11,315 | 3.2 |
| 2011 | 8 | #9,059 | 4.2 |
| 2010 | 7 | #10,065 | 3.6 |
| 2009 | 9 | #8,556 | 4.5 |
| 2008 | 9 | #8,546 | 4.4 |
| 2007 | 9 | #8,449 | 4.3 |
| 2005 | 7 | #9,490 | 3.5 |
Ranks and shares: boys’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all boys SSA recorded that year.
Is Ilai a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Ilai has been recorded only for boys: SSA lists no girls with the name in 19 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Ilai: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Ilai, and how old are they?
An estimated 251 Americans named Ilai and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (99% of everyone recorded); the median is 5 years old and half are between 3 and 11. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 197 people named Ilai (26 women and girls, 171 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 118 born in the U.S. The Census count is 1.7 times that prediction. Possible reasons: the Census counts people born abroad, whom SSA’s files leave out, and it records the name people give, which SSA may have recorded under another spelling or as part of a compound name.
Living estimate: SSA births carried forward with the survival rates in SSA’s cohort life tables (2024 Trustees Report) for each birth year and sex. How the estimate is made. Count: Census Bureau, first names in the 2020 Census (released April 14, 2026; names reported 100 or more times, with the Bureau’s disclosure-avoidance adjustment).
Names spelled alike
Of these 3 names spelled alike, given to 1,694 babies since 1880, Ilai is the second most given (15% of them). In 2025 it was given to 23 of their 114 babies (20%), the third most given that year.
Spelled alike: names in the SSA national file with the same pattern of letters and sounds and at most two letters apart, and Wiktionary’s listed forms; births since 1880 and in 2025, and each name’s peak year, from the SSA national file, published May 8, 2026. Some are separate names, not spellings of one.
Names that rose and fell in the same decades as Ilai
Names whose births rose and fell across the same decades, measured on each decade’s share of births.
Similar histories: each decade’s share of births, from the SSA national file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
More about Ilai and names like it
- Compare Ilai and IlyaBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 2020sIlai peaked in 2023.
- California’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Ilai since 1910.
- The top names of 2023The year the most babies were named Ilai.
- The names of Generation AlphaMost people named Ilai alive today were born 2013-2025.
- Names starting with IMost given first.