Lila

Lila comes from Latin, a short name that Polish families have folded into a wider group: the variants Lilian, Liliana, and Lilianna, and the everyday diminutive Lilka. The Latin thread runs through lilium, the lily, and you can hear that flower in the longer forms.

The meaning given here, "night," arrived later, carried in from names like Leila and Laila that trace back to a word for night in the languages further east. Latin gave the sound. The sense of darkness settled onto it afterward, so a girl named Lila holds a Roman root and a borrowed nighttime meaning at once.

That double life suits a short name well. On a class register it sits in four plain letters. At the urząd it fits any official form without fuss, while Liliana or Lilianna would fill the line.

Lila stays small on purpose. It can stand alone or shrink again to Lilka among friends, and it can lengthen into Liliana when a fuller name is wanted. Whatever shape it takes, the spine is the same Latin origin and that later reading of "night."