Delilah

What does the name Delilah mean?

Delilah is the woman in the Book of Judges who discovers the secret of Samson's strength and betrays him to the Philistines. Wiktionary glosses the Hebrew name as '[she who] weakened', a meaning that fits the story closely. We could not confirm that reading in a second dictionary, so we treat it as a possible explanation rather than a settled one. Despite the character's role, the name is now used for girls as a soft-sounding biblical name, and Lila and Dee are among its short forms.

דְּלִילָה (Biblical Hebrew, “Delilah; '[she who] weakened' (per Wiktionary)”)

How sure is this? Uncertain. Only one dictionary source (Wiktionary) gives the 'weakened' meaning; a scholarly check is needed.

Related names: Delila, Lila, Dalila.

See also: Hebrew names.

Nicknames for Delilah

The usual nicknames for Delilah are Lila and Del. Some parents skip the long form: for every 100 girls named Delilah in the last five years, 36 were named Lila, against 121 twenty years earlier.

Nicknames reviewed by our editors; counts are girls given the nickname as their legal first name. Nobody records how many Delilahs go by each one.

Delilah popularity since 1880

How popular is Delilah, counting every spelling?

Delilah is the most common spelling of a name family that ranked #58 for girls in 2025 once every spelling is counted together, compared with #51 for Delilah on its own. Together these spellings went to 4,361 girls in 2025.

Spellings count together when they sound the same in American English and are used for the same sex; nicknames and forms that sound different (such as Theo and Theodore) are kept apart. How we group spellings.

How many kids will share the name Delilah?

4,137 of the 3,606,400 babies born in the US in 2025 were named Delilah (1.15 per 1,000 births). For a girl named Delilah born in 2025, the chance that another child with the same name is in a class of 20 children the same age is about 1 in 46. If every grade liked the name as much as the 2025 babies do, only about one elementary school in 2 (of 430 pupils) would have a child named Delilah.

Shares of all registered births (NCHS); classes assumed to be children born the same year. How we estimate this.

How old are people named Delilah?

About 63,300 people born in the US named Delilah are alive today, with a median age of 9; half are between 4 and 16. That makes Delilah a young name: most people with it are children.

Babies given the name each year (SSA) times the share of that birth year still alive (SSA life tables). Counts people born in the US only. Method.

Delilah by state

How common Delilah was among girls born in each state in 2021–2025. It is notably more common than nationally in Wyoming (3.0×), West Virginia (2.5×), Alaska (2.5×), Nevada (2.4×), New Mexico (1.9×). It is least common, relative to the national rate, in District of Columbia, Vermont, New Jersey.

Names with a similar history

These names rose and fell in step with Delilah: their share of US girls followed the most similar curve since 1880. If you like Delilah, they share its era and feel.

• Dahlia
• Valentina
• Myla
• Gemma
• Ellie
• Evelynn

Questions about the name Delilah