Leah (given name)

Leah is a feminine given name of Hebrew origin. This name is believed to derive from (Hebrew: לָאָה‎, romanized: la’ah, lit. 'weary') or is cognate with Akkadian 𒀖 littu, meaning "pretty girl", from Proto-Semitic *layʾ-at- ~ laʾay-at- "cow". The name can be traced back to the Biblical matriarch, Leah, one of the two wives of Jacob.

Variants include:

• Lea – Croatian, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, German, Norwegian, Serbian, Slovene, Swedish, Polish, Yoruba
• Léa – French
• Leah – English, Hebrew
• Leia – Koine Greek
• Lėja – Lithuanian
• Lia – Ecclesiastical Latin, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian
• Lía – Galician
• Liadh – Irish
• Liah
• Lya
• Λεία (Lia) – Greek
• Liia – Estonian
• Lija – Latvian
• Liya

Since 1880, the name Leah has never been outside of the top 500 baby girl names in the United States. Its peak usage in the US was reached in 2010 when the name was ranked as the 24th most popular name for girls. Elsewhere it became a more popular name in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In the UK it was a top 50 name from 1996 until 2011, in Ireland it was a top 25 name from 2002 until 2014, and in Norway it was a top 100 name from 2003 through 2014. In 2014 the name ranked at 35th most popular in the US, 78th most popular in the UK, 27th most popular in Ireland, and 19th most popular in Norway.[1]