Ilza
A Slavic name that later picked up the vow "god is my oath," the same promise standing behind Elżbieta though the two look nothing alike. Fewer than 300 women in Poland carry it, so most people here have never met one.
Ilza Pronunciation
Ilza is pronounced EEL-zah (/ˈilza/).
What Ilza means
Where Ilza comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Ilza has a Slavic shape, clipped and level, the stress landing on that first bright vowel. The sound is spare. Its recorded meaning reads "god is my oath," in Polish bóg jest moją przysięgą, and that reading did not grow straight from Slavic soil.
The vow was fastened to the name later. The Slavic form on its own promised nothing about oaths; the pledge belongs to the same tradition that stands behind Elżbieta, the Polish Elizabeth, whose Hebrew source holds exactly that meaning. So Ilza and Elżbieta share one promise while looking nothing alike.
On a Polish class register, Ilza would sit near the top, ahead of the longer names. There is also a real place worth knowing: Iłża, a small town near Radom in Mazovia, watched over by the ruins of a castle once held by the bishops of Kraków. The town's name and the girl's name are separate things, though the ear catches a common root. What the name itself keeps, plainly, is that older vow: bóg jest moją przysięgą.
How many people are named Ilza
1 in 77470 women in Poland is named Ilza. 291 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #1776 among female names.
Ilza as a middle name
Ilza is a first name for 291 women in Poland and a middle name for another 81, a 78/22 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 732nd, between Valerie (82) and Leopolda (81).
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#730 Renate83
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#731 Valerie82
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#732 Ilza81
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#733 Leopolda81
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#734 Ofelia81