Ilyas
Ilyas is the Arabic and Turkish form of Hebrew Eliyahu, the prophet Elijah, carrying the old declaration "my god is Yahweh". Most Poles have never met one, but it's climbing now, given to a handful of boys each year and always to boys.
Ilyas Pronunciation
Ilyas is pronounced ee-LIH-ahs (/iˈlɨas/).
What Ilyas means
Where Ilyas comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Ilyas comes from the Hebrew name Eliyahu, borne by the prophet known in English as Elijah. The Hebrew parts spell out a small declaration: "my god is Yahweh." Along the road from Hebrew into Arabic and Turkish, Eliyahu became Ilyas, the form named in the Quran and carried across a wide stretch of the Muslim world.
So the meaning stayed close to its source. Where a Polish reader might render it "bóg jest moim panem," the older sense held: one god claimed above all the rest.
In Poland the name arrives mostly through Tatar and later immigrant families, and it turns up now on a class register beside Jan and Filip without much fuss. It reads foreign and familiar at once.
Ilyas has no Polish diminutive of its own, no softened nursery form. What you get is the whole name, three sounds, the prophet's name meaning "my god is Yahweh."
How many people are named Ilyas
1 in 102626 men in Poland is named Ilyas. 208 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #2179 among male names.
Ilyas's popularity over time
6 boys were given the name in 2025, ranking #860 among newborns. It has been climbing since 2024.
Where Ilyas is most popular
Ilyas is most popular in Lesser Poland, 852% above the national average (2 boys born 2019–2025).
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Lesser Poland2 boys born+852%
Ilyas as a middle name
Ilyas is a first name for 208 men in Poland and a middle name for another 20, a 91/9 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 1992nd, between Ilmari (20) and Irosław (20).
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#1990 Hoon20
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#1991 Ilmari20
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#1992 Ilyas20
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#1993 Irosław20
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#1994 Issa20