Idil
A Turkish feminine given name derived from the word "Idil" meaning river, stream, or rivulet.
Name Census estimates that about 167 living Americans carry the first name Idil. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Idil today is around 15 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Idil births was 2003 (13 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Idil. 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 Idil with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
167
~ 1 in 2,052,421 Americans
Peak year
2003
13 babies that year
Average age
15
years old
2024 SSA rank
#8,616
Tracked since 1998
Census
Idil in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 431 people with the first name Idil, which placed it at #22,918 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
#22,918
National first-name rank
People counted
431
431 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
71.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Idil
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Idil is Black at 71.0%. The next largest groups are White (25.5%) and Two or More Races (2.3%). 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 Idil 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 Idil at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American71.0% · 306
- White25.5% · 110
- Two or more races2.3% · 10
- Hispanic or Latino0.7% · 3
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.5% · 2
Popularity
Idil: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Idil from the 1990s through to the 2020s, spanning 4 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 65 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Idil remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Idil 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 Idil during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Idils live
Origin
Meaning and history of Idil
The name Idil has its origins in the Turkish language, where it is derived from the old Turkic word "idel" which means "river" or "waterway." The name can be traced back to the ancient Turkic peoples who inhabited the regions around the Volga River, which was referred to as "Idel" in the old Turkic tongue.
The name Idil gained prominence during the rise of the Ottoman Empire, which ruled over a vast territory spanning parts of Asia, Europe, and Africa. The Ottomans were a Turkic people, and their language and culture heavily influenced the naming traditions of the regions under their rule.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Idil can be found in the "Divan-ı Lügat-it Türk," a renowned 11th-century dictionary of Turkic languages compiled by the scholar Mahmud al-Kashgari. This work served as an important reference for understanding the linguistic and cultural heritage of the Turkic peoples.
Throughout history, several notable figures have borne the name Idil. One such person was Idil Biret, a renowned Turkish classical pianist who was born in 1941 and is celebrated for her interpretations of the works of Chopin and other composers. Another was Idil Üner, a Turkish actress and model born in 1971, who gained recognition for her roles in various Turkish television series and films.
In the realm of literature, Idil was the name of a character in the novel "The Black Book" by the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006. This fictional character represented the complexities and contradictions of modern Turkish identity.
Moving beyond the Turkic world, the name Idil has also been adopted and adapted in other cultures. In the Scandinavian region, the name Idil is sometimes used as a variant of the name Idun, which is derived from the Old Norse goddess of spring and rejuvenation.
It is worth noting that while the name Idil has its roots in the Turkic linguistic and cultural heritage, it has transcended its origins and has been embraced by diverse communities around the world, each adding their own unique interpretations and associations to this name.
People
Idil + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Idil as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with I
Other first names starting with I with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Idil: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Idil?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 167 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Idil 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 2,052,421 US residents.
Is Idil a common name?
We classify Idil as "Very Rare". It ranks above 71.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 169 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Idil most popular?
The single biggest year for Idil was 2003, when 13 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Idil is about 15 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Idil in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 431 people with the name Idil, or 0.14 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #22,918 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 Idil 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 Idil?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Idil leans strongly female. 422 people counted with this name were female (97.2%), compared with 12 male bearers (2.8%). 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 Idil?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Idil is Black at 71.0%. The next largest groups are White (25.5%) and Two or More Races (2.3%). 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 Idil most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Idil in the 2020 Census, accounting for 71.0% (306 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 Idil in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Idil a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Idil 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 Idil still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Idil 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 Idil 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 common is the name Idil?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.