Aalyah
A feminine name of Semitic origin meaning "rising" or "exalted".
Name Census estimates that about 720 living Americans carry the first name Aalyah. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Aalyah today is around 18 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Aalyah births was 2002 (51 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Aalyah. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Aalyah with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
720
~ 1 in 476,048 Americans
Peak year
2002
51 babies that year
Average age
18
years old
2024 SSA rank
#7,224
Tracked since 1994
Census
Aalyah in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 910 people with the first name Aalyah, which placed it at #13,318 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#13,318
National first-name rank
People counted
910
910 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
44.4% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Aalyah
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Aalyah is Hispanic at 44.4%. The next largest groups are Black (29.5%) and White (14.5%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Aalyah described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Aalyah at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino44.4% · 404
- Black or African American29.5% · 268
- White14.5% · 132
- Two or more races7.8% · 71
- American Indian and Alaska Native2.0% · 18
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.9% · 17
Popularity
Aalyah: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Aalyah from the 1990s through to the 2020s, spanning 4 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 375 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 2000s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Aalyah by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Aalyah during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Aalyahs live
The SSA's state-level files cover 4 states and territories. California, Texas, New York recorded the most babies named Aalyah, while Pennsylvania, New York, Texas recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 49 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Aalyah
The name Aalyah has its origins in the Arabic language and culture. It is a feminine name derived from the Arabic word 'aaliyah,' which means 'exalted' or 'sublime.' The name can be traced back to the 7th century and the advent of Islam.
The earliest recorded use of the name Aalyah can be found in various Islamic texts and historical records from the Middle East. One notable example is the mention of a woman named Aalyah in the 10th century work "The Book of Songs" by the Persian poet and scholar Abu'l-Faraj al-Isfahani.
Throughout history, there have been several notable individuals who bore the name Aalyah. One of the earliest was Aalyah bint al-Hudhayl (670-738 CE), a renowned Islamic scholar and poet from Medina. Another prominent figure was Aalyah al-Mahdawiyah (1160-1242 CE), a Sufi mystic and spiritual leader from Persia.
In more recent times, the name gained widespread recognition with the rise of the American singer and actress Aaliyah Dana Haughton (1979-2001), who was known simply as Aaliyah. Her tragic death in a plane crash at the age of 22 brought the name into the mainstream and popularized its spelling variation with two 'a's.
Another notable bearer of the name was Aalyah Quintero (1978-2009), a Puerto Rican professional wrestler better known by her ring name Daizee Haze. She was a prominent figure in the independent wrestling circuit until her untimely death at the age of 31.
Additionally, Aalyah Ishaq (born 1994) is a Canadian actress and model of Pakistani descent, known for her roles in television shows like "The Stanley Dynamic" and "Slasher."
People
Aalyah + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Aalyah as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with A
Other first names starting with A with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Aalyah: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Aalyah?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 720 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Aalyah going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 476,048 US residents.
Is Aalyah a common name?
We classify Aalyah as "Very Rare". It ranks above 87.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 730 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Aalyah most popular?
The single biggest year for Aalyah was 2002, when 51 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Aalyah is about 18 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Aalyah in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 910 people with the name Aalyah, or 0.30 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #13,318 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Aalyah in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Aalyah?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Aalyah appears almost entirely female. Of the 907 people counted with this name, 99.9% were female and only a very small share were male. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Aalyah?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Aalyah is Hispanic at 44.4%. The next largest groups are Black (29.5%) and White (14.5%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Aalyah most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Aalyah in the 2020 Census, accounting for 44.4% (404 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Aalyah in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Aalyah a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Aalyah in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Aalyah still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Aalyah in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Aalyah can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people have Aalyah as a first name?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.