Isla is derived from the Scottish Gaelic word ‘eilean’ which means ‘island’. Isla has gained popularity in recent years as a given name and it is considered a nature name.
Isla is a female first name. In very rare cases it is also used for boys.
The first name Isla is one of the top 100 most popular girls names in the US – currently at #81 in our SmartGenius ranking. Over 1,000 babies each year are named Isla, accounting for approximately 0.20 % of all newborn girls. In the entire USA, approximately 39,694 people – children, adults and seniors – currently bear the name Isla. That is 0.01 % of all living Americans.
Isla is derived from the Scottish Gaelic word ‘eilean’ which means ‘island’. Isla has gained popularity in recent years as a given name and it is considered a nature name.
This is a real surprise! Isla is a name that has been around for a long time, but only really took off in the 21st century. In the year 2021, it reached its best rank at #32 according to our SmartGenius statistics. This makes Isla much more popular than in previous generations, where it was so rare for several years that it was not even recorded in the statistics. While the name Isla was observed for the first time ever in 1886, it now seems to have found its place in the zeitgeist of the 21st century. In 2021, the year of its highest popularity, the name was given a total of 5,514 times. Whether this beautiful girls' name can repeat or even exceed its previous best ranking in the coming years remains to be seen, but the prospects are promising given the positive trend.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Isla was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
In 2022, Isla ranked #34 in our SmartGenius statistics. In absolute figures, this means it was given to newborn girls a total of 5,255 times. No one knows what names (or combinations of numbers and letters) will be popular 50 years from now, but given its popularity in the early years of this millennium, there is a good chance that Isla will not disappear from the screen anytime soon.
The name Isla may not be in the top rankings of the most popular girls’ names, but it is one of the few female given names, along with only 536 others, that can be found in every single state in the U.S. from Alaska to Florida and from California to New York. Of course, the name occurs more frequently in some states than in others – and Isla is apparently especially popular in Alaska. Although the name is not one of the top 100 most popular women’s names here either, one in 1,114 women in Alaska is called Isla. In total, that’s 171 women who feel addressed when the name Isla is shouted loudly across Alaska and who ensure that their name makes it to #280 in our SmartGenius ranking of the most common female names in this nice state. If you asked all women in the entire U.S. for their first name, you would hear Isla as the answer a total of 39,694 times. This places Isla at #597 in our SmartGenius statistics for the most popular women’s names in the whole of the USA. This is true for all currently living women across all states and age groups – the recent popularity of the name Isla as a baby name is, of course, a bit different, as you can see from the statistics above.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter I is pretty rare as an initial letter for girls' names: only 1.7% of all common girls' names in the US begin with an I. The most common first letters of girls' names, by the way, are A, S and M, while U, X and Q are the least common initials of girls' names.
With four letters, the name Isla is shorter than most other given names. In fact, only 5.5% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly four letters. Just 1.2% of all first names are even shorter, while 93% consist of more than four letters. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long. There are no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.
That means that since 1.7% of all girls’ names begin with an I, this initial occurs only about half as often as the other letters on average. Nevertheless, there are of course single names that begin with an I, which are quite popular
If your name is Isla and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...
So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Isla, you can simply say:
Igloo
Sun
Lion
Apple
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Isla
Isla
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.
In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Isla sounds like this: