Leila (name)

Look up Laila in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Look up Reconstruction:Proto-Semitic/layl- in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Leila (Persian: لیلا; Hebrew: לילה‎‎; Arabic: ليلى‎‎) is a feminine given name in the Iranian, Hebrew and Arabic languages.

Leila is the Arabic and Hebrew word for "night": laylah. The identification of the word "night" as the name of an angel originates with the interpretation of "Rabbi Yochanan" (possibly Yochanan ben Zakkai, c. 30–90 AD) who read "At night [Abraham] and his servants deployed against them and defeated them” (Genesis 14.15, JPS) as "by [an angel called] night" (Sanhedrin 96a).

The story of Qays and Layla or Layla and Majnun is based on the romantic poems of Qais Ibn Al-Mulawwah (قيس بن الملوح), who was nicknamed Majnoon Layla (مجنون ليلى), Arabic for "madly in love with Layla", his cousin Layla Al-Amiriah (ليلى العامرية) in 7th century Arabia.^[1] His poems are considered the paragon of unrequited chaste love. They later became a popular romance in medieval Iran,^[2] and use of the name spread accordingly. The name gained popularity further afield in the Muslim World, amongst Turkic peoples and in the Balkans and India.

Variant spellings include Laela, Laelah, Laila, Layla, Leïla, Leighla, Lejla and Leyla.

In the Nordic countries, Laila or Lajla (pronounced lie-lah) is derived from the Sami name Láilá, the Sami variant of Helga which means holy.^[3]

People with this name

Laila

• Laila Ali, boxer and daughter of Muhammad Ali
• Laila Ali Abdulla, First Lady of the Maldives
• Laila Bagge, Swedish manager and songwriter
• Laila Freivalds, Swedish Social-Democrat
• Laila Harré, New Zealand politician
• Laila Hirvisaari, Finnish author and writer
• Laila Lalami, novelist and essayist
• Laila Mehdin, Indian actress
• Laila Morse, EastEnders actress
• Laila Pakalniņa, Latvian director
• Laila Rouass, English actress
• Laila Stien, Norwegian writer
• DJ Laila, Filipino radio and television presenter
• Laila (album), album by Shahin Badar

Layla

• Layla El, British retired professional wrestler, dancer, model, actress, and entrepreneur of Moroccan descent
• MC Layla Handbury, Australian MC
• Layla Kayleigh, former G4 host on the US television program, Attack of the Show!
• Layla Kaylif, British Emirati singer
• Layla Palmer, singer and keyboardist for the band Amity Lane
• Layla al-Akhyaliyya 8th century AD Ummayad Arab poet
• Layla McCarter

Leighla

• Leighla Schultz, former fiancée of Seth Rollins

Leila

• Leila Aboulela, Sudanese writer
• Leila Ahmed, Egyptian-American professor
• Leila Anderson, South African performance artist
• Leila Arab, London-based musician of Persian descent
• Leila Barros, Brazilian volleyball player
• Leila Bela, Iranian-American avant-garde musician, actress and writer
• Leila de Lima, Filipino human rights activist
• Leila Denmark, an American pediatrician
• Leila Forouhar, Iranian singer and actress
• Leila Goldkuhl, American model, student and runner-up on America's Next Top Model, Cycle 19
• Leila Hatami, Iranian actress, star of the 1996 Iranian film Leila
• Leila Hayes, Australian actress
• Leila Hyams, American film actress
• Leila Josefowicz, American violinist
• Leila Kasra, Iranian poet and lyricist
• Leila Khaled, Palestinian hijacker and senior PFLP member
• Leila Lopes, Angolan Miss Universe 2011 winner
• Leila McKinnon, Iranian-Australian journalist
• Leila N. Morris (properly, Lelia N. Morris, 1862–1929), American hymnwriter
• Leila Mourad, Egyptian singer and movie star
• Leila Pahlavi, Princess of Iran
• Leila Säälik (born 1941), Estonian actress
• Leïla Slimani (born 1981), French-Moroccan writer and journalist
• Leila Sobral, Brazilian basketball player
• Leila Al Solh, Lebanese public figure
• Leila Tong, Hong Kong actress and singer
• Leila Vaziri, Iranian-American swimmer, world record holder
• Leila Waddell, mistress of notorious British occultist Aleister Crowley

Lejla

• Lejla Hot, Serbian singer of Albanian descent

Leyla

• Leyla Achba, princess at the Ottoman Empire court
• Leyla Chihuán, Peruvian volleyball player
• Leyla Gencer, Turkish soprano opera singer
• Leyla Güngör (born 1993), Turkish-Swedish footballer
• Leyla Mamedbekova,the first female professor in Azerbaijan in the field of pathology, the first female forensic medical expert, and the first female chief pathologist of Azerbaijan.
• Leyla Mammadbeyova, the first female Azerbaijani aviator
• Leyla Milani, American model of Iranian descent
• Leyla Neyzi, Turkish academic
• Leyla Pınar, Turkish harpsichordist and musicologist
• Leyla Qasim, Kurdish activist in Iraq
• Leyla Saz, composer, poet and writer of Cretan Turkish descent
• Leyla Tuğutlu, Turkish beauty queen
• Leyla Vakilova, Azerbaijani ballerina
• Leyla Zana, Kurdish politician from Turkey

Fictional and mythological characters

• Lailah, an angel of the night in Jewish mythology
• Layla in the classic Persian love story Layla and Majnun
• Leïla, heroine of Bizet's opera Les Pecheurs de Perles (The Pearl Fishers), 1863
• Layla in the 1st Story Maxi CD 「Seisen no Iberia / 聖戦のイベリア」 of Sound Horizon
• Layla in the animated series Winx Club
• Layla Hamilton in the Japanese manga series Kaleido Star
• Layla Heartfilia in the Japanese manga series Fairy Tail
• Leyla Harding in the British soap opera Emmerdale
• Layla Miller in the Marvel universe
• Layla from the Story of Tracy Beaker Series 3-5, portrayed by Cara Readle
• Layla Serizawa in the Japanese manga series NANA
• Leela (Doctor Who), a companion of the Fourth Doctor (1977–78)
• Leela in the animated TV show Futurama
• Leila, a playable character in Final Fantasy II
• Leila, a daughter of main character in video game by Saber Interactive Inversion
• Leila Hosnani, mother of Nessim (and Narouz) Hosnani, in Lawrence Durrell's The Alexandria Quartet

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Female names Leyla.

• Layla (disambiguation)
• Leela (name)
• Leila (disambiguation)
• Lilith, name with the same etymological root

References