girl's name
Alaia
ah-LY-uh
- Origin Basque
- Gender Girl
- Letters 5
- Popularity Top 1000 (US)
- Births on record 20,542
the United States
#117
2025 births
Alaia is a girl's name of Basque origin meaning "joyful" or "happy," from the Basque alai. Basque is a language isolate, unrelated to any other in Europe, which makes its names genuinely distinct rather than variants of familiar ones.
- Alaia is a name of Basque origin.
- Peaked in 2024, when 2,429 babies were given the name.
- It has been rising over the past decade.
- Today about 1 in 1,427 babies in the United States is given this name.
- First appears in US birth records in 1986.
Alaia over time
Births per decade in the United States, 1980s to 2020s. The striped bar is the 2020s, still in progress — it covers 2020 to 2025, not a full ten years.
Show the numbers
| Decade | Births |
|---|---|
| 1980s | 6 |
| 1990s | 42 |
| 2000s | 230 |
| 2010s | 3,770 |
| 2020s (to 2025) | 13,651 |
What Alaia means
Alaia means joyful or cheerful, from the Basque adjective alai. Some sources instead offer "sublime" via an Arabic reading, treating it as a form of Aliyah, and both are in circulation.
Where Alaia comes from
Alaia comes from the Basque alai, meaning happy or cheerful, with the definite article suffix -a that Basque attaches to nouns and adjectives. Basque is a language isolate — it has no demonstrated relationship to Indo-European or any other family, and predates the arrival of Latin and Celtic speech in western Europe — so its names are not variants of anything. A competing derivation treats Alaia as a respelling of the Arabic Aliyah, meaning exalted, which would give an entirely different sense. Its rise in United States records is recent and coincides with the broader adoption of short vowel-heavy girls' names.
Alaia in use
Basque has no known relatives among the world's languages, so its names are genuinely original rather than local forms of familiar ones.
How popular is Alaia?
In 2025, Alaia was given to 2,324 babies in the United States, ranking #117 that year. It is a well-established, commonly used name.
Where Alaia is used
US figures omit any name given to fewer than five babies in a year, so the rarest names are absent from the source rather than absent from use. Data & sources.
How Alaia is spelled
Birth registers count each spelling separately, so every one has its own ranking.
| Spelling | What it is | Births on record |
|---|---|---|
| Alaïa | Alaïa is Alaia written with a diaeresis in France, and the spelling parents there overwhelmingly choose: it ranks #564 in France, against #2,015 for Alaia. | 519 |
Names that peaked alongside Alaia
These names rose and fell in the same era, which is why they tend to sound like they belong together.
Parents who like Alaia also like
Names whose popularity has risen and fallen in step with Alaia over the last century — the same taste, a different name.
1 nickname for Alaia
Each one is a name in its own right — the figure underneath is how it is doing today, so you can see which short forms are rising and which have faded.
Alaia in other languages
The same name as it is spelled elsewhere — not shortenings, and not different names that merely sound alike. Each one has its own record here.
Sibling names for Alaia
Names from the same era that won't rhyme or share an initial with Alaia — the two things that make a sibling set grate.
Common questions about Alaia
What does the name Alaia mean?
Alaia means "joyful" in Basque, from alai.
Is Alaia a Basque name?
Yes, though some sources instead read it as a form of the Arabic Aliyah.
What is special about Basque names?
Basque is unrelated to any other language, so its names are original rather than local variants.
How popular is the name Alaia?
In 2025, Alaia was given to 2,324 babies in the United States, ranking #117 that year. It is a well-established, commonly used name.
Is Alaia a girl's or a boy's name?
Alaia is given almost entirely to girls in birth records.
When was Alaia most popular?
Alaia peaked in 2024, when 2,429 babies were given the name. It has been rising over the past decade.
What are the nicknames for Alaia?
Alaia is usually shortened to Lai.
Is Alaia a good name?
That is not something records can settle, but they can tell you what you would be choosing. Alaia currently ranks #117 in the United States. It has been rising over the past decade. Everything else — how it sounds with your surname, who it reminds you of — is yours.