Baby names starting with L: girls and boys

The most used girls' names beginning with L in 2025

L reaches higher up the national lists than any letter except A and O. Lily is the second most popular girls' name in England and Wales and Lottie the 31st, and the letter as a whole covers 18,317 girls across 467 spellings. Nine L names sit inside the girls' top 100, which is the fourth-largest set after E, M and A.

The most used boys' names beginning with L in 2025

The boys' letter is almost exactly the same size, 19,465 babies across 270 names, but far more concentrated at the top. Leo at 3,278 and Luca at 3,266 are third and fourth in the country and separated by twelve babies, one of the closest gaps anywhere in the 2025 data. Seven L names are inside the boys' top 100.

Which L names are rising and which are falling

Climbing

Lyla and Lyra each gained 13 places, the letter's largest one-year climbs, and Lilah gained 17 and entered the top 100 as a new entry. Lottie rose 7, Layla 6 and Lily 1. On the boys' side Leo gained 2, Luca 3 and Liam 2. Over ten years the moves are much larger: Lyra is up 153 places since 2015, Lilah 172, Luna 71 and Lyla 59.

Slipping

Luna fell 11 places in 2025 despite being 71 places higher than in 2015, and Logan fell 11 and is down 62 since 2015, the largest ten-year fall of any name in the boys' top 100. Lucas lost 7 places and Louis 2. Lola held level in the year but is down 47 places over ten years, the letter's steepest long-run decline on the girls' side.

What the published change columns cannot tell you

Lucy, Lydia, Lucia, Liyana, Lilly, Leonardo, Luke, Lorenzo, Lenny and Lando are all below rank 100 and carry no published change figure. Lando at 217 babies is the kind of name where a single-year comparison would be tempting and unsupported, so this page gives its count and its rank and stops there.

How big a letter L really is

L is fourth for girls and fourth for boys by babies named, one of only six letters, with A, M, B, H and U, to hold the same position on both sides. It is a letter with genuine depth on the girls' side, where 467 distinct names are recorded, and a much narrower one for boys, where 270 names cover a similar number of babies.

The Ly- group is what has changed the letter. Lyla at 751, Lyra at 643 and Lilah at 464 were all outside the top 100 in 2015 and are all inside it now, and they sit alongside Lily, Lila and Layla in a cluster of similar sounds. Because the ONS counts spellings separately, the family is far larger in speech than any single row shows.

Further L names in the published 2025 list

The ONS full list does not stop at the tables above, and the counts stay exact all the way down. For girls the next names in order of use are Lydia at 317, Lucia at 284, Lila at 277, Leah at 273, Liliana at 228, Lainey at 219, Lillie at 205, Lina at 200, Lana at 185, Leila at 171, Layan at 163, Lena at 158. For boys they are Lenny at 370, Lando at 217, Lewis at 216, Lennie at 210, Leonard at 187, Laith at 181, Lochlan at 179, Luka at 177, Lennon at 167, Lachlan at 159, Lennox at 158, Lincoln at 151. Each figure is the exact number of babies registered with that exact spelling during 2025, taken from the ONS full-list table rather than from the top 100. The letter carries 467 different girls' names and 270 different boys' names in the published data altogether, and any name given to two or fewer babies has been removed from it.

Choosing a L name: what the data changes

If you want an L name that will not be shared, avoid the Ly- and Li- group entirely, because it is the fastest-growing part of the letter and the one most likely to produce two children with near-identical names in the same room. Lucia at 284, Lydia at 317 and Lorenzo at 378 are established names well outside that cluster, and all sit below rank 200.