Ayla
A Turkish name meaning "moonlight", the halo of the moon. Most Poles have never met one: fewer than 200 girls carry it, all of them young, and a few more arrive each year.
Ayla Pronunciation
Ayla is pronounced ah-IH-lah (/aˈɨla/).
What Ayla means
Where Ayla comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Ayla comes from Turkish, where the word names the halo of light that rings the moon. The short meaning stays close to that source: moonlight, the halo of the moon. It sits outside the Latin and Slavic roots that fill most Polish registers, and its origin is marked simply as other.
Turkish speakers have used Ayla for generations. A 2017 Turkish film titled Ayla, drawn from a true story of the Korean War, put the name before large audiences and tied it to a small girl a soldier took in. That kept it in wide circulation.
In Poland the name reads as short and clean. Four letters. On a class register it settles among Polish forms without asking for a nickname, since it keeps no standard diminutive of its own. What a child named Ayla holds is the plain sense of the word: the pale ring of light around the moon.
How many people are named Ayla
1 in 114436 women in Poland is named Ayla. 197 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #2245 among female names.
Ayla's popularity over time
12 girls were given the name in 2025, ranking #648 among newborns. It has been climbing since 2011.
Where parents choose Ayla
Ayla is most popular in Lower Silesian, 206% above the national average (10 girls born 2019–2025), followed by Masovian (+158%) and Kuyavian-Pomeranian (+76%). It is least common in Silesian and Łódź, 58% and 24% below average respectively.
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Lower Silesian
+206%1 in 15,713 babies
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Masovian
+158%1 in 18,646 babies
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian
+76%1 in 27,345 babies
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Silesian
−58%1 in 113,792 babies
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Łódź
−24%1 in 63,359 babies
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Lesser Poland
−15%1 in 56,729 babies
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Lower Silesian+206% 10 born1 in 15,713 babies+206%
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Masovian+158% 19 born1 in 18,646 babies+158%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian+76% 4 born1 in 27,345 babies+76%
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Greater Poland−11% 4 born1 in 53,811 babies−11%
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Lesser Poland−15% 4 born1 in 56,729 babies−15%
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Łódź−24% 2 born1 in 63,359 babies−24%
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Silesian−58% 2 born1 in 113,792 babies−58%
Ayla as a middle name
Ayla is a first name for 197 women in Poland and a middle name for another 32, an 86/14 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 1228th, between Atina (32) and Catarina (32).
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#1226 Anastazia32
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#1227 Atina32
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#1228 Ayla32
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#1229 Catarina32
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#1230 Chi32