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/leɪlə/
Arabic: [lajlaː,leː-]
Persian: [lejlɒː] |
Leila (Hebrew: לילה; Arabic: ليلى; Persian: لیلا) is a feminine given name in the Iranian, Hebrew and Arabic languages.
Leila is the Arabic and Hebrew word for "night": laylah. The identification of the word "night" as the name of an angel originates with the interpretation of "Rabbi Yochanan" (possibly Yochanan ben Zakkai, c. 30–90 AD) who read "At night [Abraham] and his servants deployed against them and defeated them” (Genesis 14.15, JPS) as "by [an angel called] night" (Sanhedrin 96a).
The story of Qays and Layla or Layla and Majnun is based on the romantic poems of Qais Ibn Al-Mulawwah (قيس بن الملوح), who was nicknamed Majnoon Layla (مجنون ليلى), Arabic for "madly in love with Layla", his cousin Layla Al-Amiriah (ليلى العامرية) in 7th century Arabia. His poems are considered the paragon of unrequited chaste love. They later became a popular romance in medieval Iran, and use of the name spread accordingly. The name gained popularity further afield in the Muslim World, amongst Turkic peoples and in the Balkans and India.
Variant spellings include Laela, Laelah, Laila, Layla, Leïla, Leighla, Lejla and Leyla.
In the Nordic countries, Laila or Lajla (pronounced lie-lah) is derived from the Sami name Láilá, the Sami variant of Helga which means holy.
Laila Ali, boxer and daughter of Muhammad Ali
Laila Ali Abdulla, First Lady of the Maldives
Laila Bagge, Swedish manager and songwriter
Laila Freivalds, Swedish Social-Democrat
Laila Harré, New Zealand politician
Laila Hirvisaari, Finnish author and writer
Laila Lalami, novelist and essayist
Laila Mehdin, Indian actress
Laila Morse, EastEnders actress
Laila Pakalniņa, Latvian director
Laila Rouass, English actress
Laila Stien, Norwegian writer
DJ Laila, Filipino radio and television presenter
Layla El, British retired professional wrestler, dancer, model, actress, and entrepreneur of Moroccan descent
MC Layla Handbury, Australian MC
Layla Kayleigh, former G4 host on the US television program, Attack of the Show!
Layla Kaylif, British Emirati singer
Layla Palmer, singer and keyboardist for the band Amity Lane
Layla al-Akhyaliyya 8th century AD Ummayad Arab poet
Layla McCarter
Leighla Schultz, former fiancée of Seth Rollins
Leila Aboulela, Sudanese writer
Leila Ahmed, Egyptian-American professor
Leila Anderson, South African performance artist
Leila Arab, London-based musician of Persian descent
Leila Barros, Brazilian volleyball player
Leila Bela, Iranian-American avant-garde musician, actress and writer
Leila de Lima, Filipino human rights activist
Leila Denmark, an American pediatrician
Leila Forouhar, Iranian singer and actress
Leila Goldkuhl, American model, student and runner-up on America's Next Top Model, Cycle 19
Leila Hatami, Iranian actress, star of the 1996 Iranian film Leila
Leila Hayes, Australian actress
Leila Hyams, American film actress
Leila Josefowicz, American violinist
Leila Kasra, Iranian poet and lyricist
Leila Khaled, Palestinian hijacker and senior PFLP member
Leila Lopes, Angolan Miss Universe 2011 winner
Leila McKinnon, Iranian-Australian journalist
Leila N. Morris (properly, Lelia N. Morris, 1862–1929), American hymnwriter
Leila Mourad, Egyptian singer and movie star
Leila Pahlavi, Princess of Iran
Leila Säälik (born 1941), Estonian actress
Leïla Slimani (born 1981), French-Moroccan writer and journalist
Leila Sobral, Brazilian basketball player
Leila Al Solh, Lebanese public figure
Leila Tong, Hong Kong actress and singer
Leila Vaziri, Iranian-American swimmer, world record holder
Leila Waddell, mistress of notorious British occultist Aleister Crowley
Lejla Hot, Serbian singer of Albanian descent
Leyla Achba, princess at the Ottoman Empire court
Leyla Chihuán, Peruvian volleyball player
Leyla Gencer, Turkish soprano opera singer
Leyla Güngör (born 1993), Turkish-Swedish footballer
Leyla Mamedbekova,the first female professor in Azerbaijan in the field of pathology, the first female forensic medical expert, and the first female chief pathologist of Azerbaijan.
Leyla Mammadbeyova, the first female Azerbaijani aviator
Leyla Milani, American model of Iranian descent
Leyla Neyzi, Turkish academic
Leyla Pınar, Turkish harpsichordist and musicologist
Leyla Qasim, Kurdish activist in Iraq
Leyla Saz, composer, poet and writer of Cretan Turkish descent
Leyla Tuğutlu, Turkish beauty queen
Leyla Vakilova, Azerbaijani ballerina
Leyla Zana, Kurdish politician from Turkey
Fictional and mythological characters
Lailah, an angel of the night in Jewish mythology
Layla in the classic Persian love story Layla and Majnun
Leïla, heroine of Bizet's opera Les Pecheurs de Perles (The Pearl Fishers), 1863
Layla in the 1st Story Maxi CD 「Seisen no Iberia / 聖戦のイベリア」 of Sound Horizon
Layla in the animated series Winx Club
Layla Hamilton in the Japanese manga series Kaleido Star
Layla Heartfilia in the Japanese manga series Fairy Tail
Leyla Harding in the British soap opera Emmerdale
Layla Miller in the Marvel universe
Layla from the Story of Tracy Beaker Series 3-5, portrayed by Cara Readle
Layla Serizawa in the Japanese manga series NANA
Leela (Doctor Who), a companion of the Fourth Doctor (1977–78)
Leela in the animated TV show Futurama
Leila, a playable character in Final Fantasy II
Leila, a daughter of main character in video game by Saber Interactive Inversion
Leila Hosnani, mother of Nessim (and Narouz) Hosnani, in Lawrence Durrell's The Alexandria Quartet
Leila (name) Wikipedia (Text) CC BY-SA