Variant of Leila, from Arabic 'layla' meaning 'night' or 'dark beauty'.
Lela is a name of remarkable multicultural reach, claimed by at least three distinct linguistic traditions as authentically its own. In Arabic and Persian, it is a variant of Layla — from *layl*, meaning "night" — carrying the romantic weight of the legendary Layla and Majnun love story, the Middle East's answer to Romeo and Juliet, immortalized by the 12th-century poet Nizami Ganjavi and echoed in Eric Clapton's rock anthem centuries later. In this tradition, Lela/Layla represents the unattainable beloved, the night-dark beauty who drives poetry into existence.
In Georgian tradition, Lela has an entirely independent identity: it derives from a beloved Georgian folk song, "Lela," making the name a piece of living musical heritage carried by countless Georgian women for generations. The name also has roots in some West African naming traditions — in Hausa-speaking communities, it can mean "born at night" independently of Arabic influence — and appears in indigenous North American communities, particularly Cherokee, where it has been used as a given name for over a century. This cross-cultural convergence around a single sound is unusual and speaks to something universally pleasing in Lela's phonology.
As a given name in English-speaking contexts, Lela has been in use since at least the late nineteenth century, sometimes as an independent name and sometimes as a variant of Leila or Lila. It enjoyed quiet popularity through the early and mid twentieth century, then receded somewhat as Layla and Lila surged in the 2000s and 2010s. This makes Lela something of a hidden gem for contemporary parents: it has genuine historical presence and profound cultural depth across multiple traditions, yet feels fresher and less ubiquitous than its close relatives.