# Lea (first name)

Source: https://namelineage.com/first-name/lea/  
Publisher: Name Lineage. US counts from the Social Security Administration; England and Wales counts from the Office for National Statistics; meaning and etymology from Wiktionary. Data updated 2026-11-11.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Usually given to | girls |
| Origin | Hebrew |
| Meaning | “meadow” |
| Pronunciation | not recorded |
| Nicknames | none recorded |
| Variant spellings | none recorded |
| US babies named this | 34,468 since 1880 |
| Boys / girls in the US | 620 / 33,848 (98% girls) |
| Babies in England and Wales | 1,831, 1996 to 2025 |

## Etymology

From Old English lēa, the dative case of lēah (“meadow”).

## Popularity

The last 15 years of each series. A year is missing when too few babies were given the name for the agency to publish it: five in the US, three in England and Wales.

### United States, girls

| Year | Babies | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 528 | 556 |
| 2012 | 470 | 610 |
| 2013 | 473 | 599 |
| 2014 | 416 | 682 |
| 2015 | 382 | 739 |
| 2016 | 422 | 690 |
| 2017 | 337 | 810 |
| 2018 | 410 | 710 |
| 2019 | 389 | 727 |
| 2020 | 363 | 751 |
| 2021 | 378 | 754 |
| 2022 | 362 | 786 |
| 2023 | 349 | 804 |
| 2024 | 327 | 833 |
| 2025 | 321 | 848 |

### United States, boys

| Year | Babies | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 1968 | 6 | 3,953 |
| 1969 | 6 | 4,205 |
| 1970 | 7 | 4,077 |
| 1971 | 5 | 5,340 |
| 1974 | 10 | 3,462 |
| 1975 | 7 | 4,593 |
| 1978 | 7 | 4,835 |
| 1979 | 6 | 5,776 |
| 1981 | 5 | 6,862 |
| 1982 | 7 | 5,359 |
| 1983 | 8 | 4,736 |
| 1984 | 5 | 6,922 |
| 1985 | 5 | 7,140 |
| 1988 | 7 | 6,176 |
| 1989 | 5 | 8,683 |

### England and Wales, girls

| Year | Babies | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 64 | 629 |
| 2012 | 74 | 573 |
| 2013 | 62 | 652 |
| 2014 | 69 | 597 |
| 2015 | 79 | 549 |
| 2016 | 60 | 684 |
| 2017 | 86 | 503 |
| 2018 | 71 | 583 |
| 2019 | 77 | 526 |
| 2020 | 85 | 472 |
| 2021 | 69 | 567 |
| 2022 | 72 | 541 |
| 2023 | 57 | 637 |
| 2024 | 65 | 603 |
| 2025 | 63 | 622 |

### England and Wales, boys

| Year | Babies | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 2001 | 3 | 3,134 |
| 2004 | 3 | 3,651 |

## People named Lea

- Lea Michele, American actress and singer
- Lea Thompson, American actress
- Lea Schüller, German association football player
- Léa Drucker, French actress
- Lea DeLaria, American actor, comedian and singer
- Lea Ypi, Albanian philosopher and professor of political theory at the London School of Economics
- Lea Friedrich, German cyclist
- Anna Lea Merritt, American painter (1844-1930)
- Lea Wermelin, Danish politician
- Maria Lea Pedini-Angelini, Captain Regent of San Marino
- Léa Pool, film director, screenwriter
- Lea Deutsch, Croatian child actress (1927–1943)

## How to read these numbers

A count is babies registered with that name in that year, not people alive now, so a name common a century ago can have a large total and few recent births.