Lilian
given name · Latin script
Meaning: From Latin lilium ‘lily’; associated with purity
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/lilian/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Lilian is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Honduras it is the 48th most common given name.
- PYParaguay≈1 in 404(inferred from the name graph)
- KEKenya≈1 in 420
- HNHonduras≈1 in 534
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Lilian itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- #542 (measured from records)
- 7 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 530 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 404 (inferred from the name graph)
182,256 named Lillian, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Paraguay, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Lillian in US United States, KE Kenya.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
From Latin lilium ‘lily’; associated with purity.
Sources 1
- Dictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
Attested across 21 languages in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Lilian, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Lilian counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #292 | 182,256as Lillian | 1 in 1.8K | 182K | Lillian | 530 |
| KE Kenya | #341 | ≈130,000 est. | ≈1 in 420 | — | Lillian | 48 |
| NG Nigeria | #561 | ≈110,000 est. | ≈1 in 2K | — | Lilian | 94 |
| BR Brazil | #278 | 107,581 | 1 in 2K | 109K | Lilian | 204 |
| PH Philippines | — | ≈28,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.9K | — | Lilian | 78 |
| PY Paraguay | #80 | ≈18,000 est. | ≈1 in 404 | — | Lilian | 42 |
| HN Honduras | #48 | ≈17,000 est. | ≈1 in 534 | — | Lilian | 40 |
| SV El Salvador | #104 | ≈10,000 est. | ≈1 in 637 | — | Lilian | 40 |
| MD Moldova | — | 5,376 | 1 in 626 | 5.4K | — | 14 |
182,256 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); IBGE — Nomes (census name API); e-services.md — living population register. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Lilian is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In French, French form related to Latin Lilius/Lilianus; also linked to lily symbolism.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Of uncertain origin, first recorded in the late 16th century, and probably derived from a nursery form of Elizabeth. It is now sometimes regarded as a derivative of the flower name Lily, but this was not used as a given name in England until the roth century. Variant: Lillian.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In French, a male given name, the masculine equivalent of Liliane
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Swedish, Lilian är en engelsk form av Lily (→ Lilly). Namnet skrivs även Lili-Ann med flera varianter. En känd namnbärare i Sverige är den brittiskfödda prinsessan Lilian (1915–2013). I den rikssvenska almanackan 6 september och i den finlandssvenska 20 maj.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
In French, Masculin de Liliane; origine latine, « lys ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Ethel Lilian Voynichb. 1864USBritish writer and musician (1864–1960)
- Lillian Fontaineb. 1886GBBritish actress (1886-1975)
- Viola Lawrenceb. 1894USnot in their usual nameAmerican film editor (1894-1973)
- Betty Smithb. 1896USnot in their usual nameAmerican author (1896–1972)
- Princess Lilian, Duchess of Hallandb. 1915GBWelsh model who became a member of the Swedish royal family (1915-2013)
- Princess Marie-Esméralda, Lady Moncadab. 1956BEnot in their usual nameBelgian princess, youngest child of Leopold III of Belgium and Lilian, Princess of Réthy
- Lilian Thuramb. 1972FRFrench footballer (born 1972)
- Marcus Thuramb. 1997FRnot in their usual nameFrench footballer (born 1997)
- Adrien Truffertb. 2001FRnot in their usual nameFrench footballer (born 2001)
- Princess Leonore, Duchess of Gotlandb. 2014USnot in their usual nameSwedish princess, eldest child of Princess Madeleine and Christopher O'Neill
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 107 sources across 61 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 109K | #442 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 108K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 107K | #305 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 30K | #1,257 |
| MD Moldova | e-services.md — living population register | — | 5.4K | #166 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 1.2K | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 537 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 455 | #305 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 135 | #1,257 |
Reference works 5
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What are other forms of the name Lilian?
- In the etymology graph, Elizabeth, Lisa and Isabel are forms of the same name in other languages; it is recorded as a short form of Elsabeth.
- Is Lilian a male or female name?
- Lilian is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What does the name Lilian mean, and where does it come from?
- From Latin lilium ‘lily’; associated with purity. Recorded by Dictionnaire généalogique des prénoms.
- How do you pronounce Lilian?
- A machine transcription gives /lilian/ (IPA) for Spanish.
- In which country does Lilian have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 182 thousand people named Lillian, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Lilian?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 107,581 people named Lilian in 2022, about 1 in 2.0 thousand residents.
- How common is Lilian compared with other names?
- In the United States, Lilian is the 292nd most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Lilian?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/lilianThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Lilian” — the 292nd most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.