Lillie
- Pronunciation
- [Li-llie]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- The Flower Lily Is A Symbol Of Innocence: Purity And Beauty.
- Origin
- English
About the Name Lillie
Lillie is a modern English spelling variant of Lily (see separate entry on Lily for the Latin lilium etymology — referring to the lily flower as a Christian symbol of purity and the Virgin Mary). The double-L -ie spelling Lillie is essentially a 19th-century American/British variant.
The various spellings (Lillie, Lily, Lillee) are tracked separately by SSA and represent the same underlying Latin name. The Lillie spelling specifically appeals to parents seeking a slightly more elaborate form than the simpler Lily. Notable bearers include the iconic British actress Lillie Langtry (1853–1929, the iconic British actress and one of the most-famous British beauties of the late Victorian era); American actress Lillie McCloud; and the contemporary American singer Lillie West.
Lillie held a US top-50 girls' rank from 1880 through 1920 — about four decades of late-Victorian American popularity. After a long mid-20th-century quiet period, the name has been climbing back through the 2010s and 2020s as part of the broader vintage-revival wave alongside Hattie, Sadie, and Mae. Lillie climbed back into the US top 300 girls' rank by 2018 and the top 300 since. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the in-built Latin-Christian-flower pedigree, the popular two-syllable -ie ending family (Lillie, Sadie, Hattie, Maggie), and the modern visual presence with the double-L spelling. Two firm syllables, soft consonants, and tonal warmth distinctive to vintage-revival names. The name reads as both classical-vintage and contemporary American. Common nicknames are scarce since Lillie is itself a nickname-shape — Lil (the dominant short form, casual and warm) and the rare Lillah each occasionally appear; the alternate spellings Lillie, Lily (the simpler form), Lilli, and Lilly have their own SSA tracking. International forms include Lilli (German/Italian alternate), Lis (French alternate), and the broader Lily/Lillian/Lilith family.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Lillie
US Popularity History (1880–2025)
Annual US births named Lillie by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1919 with 3,262 girls named Lillie (girl rank #81 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #676 for girls (420 US births). That's 595 places below its 1919 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
Paste the snippet below on any HTML page. Includes a credit link back to 9BabyNames — please keep it intact.
Where in the US Is Lillie Most Popular?
Average girl-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Lillie the strongest states are West Virginia, Alabama, Kentucky.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | West Virginia | #260 | 29 |
| 2 | Alabama | #343 | 137 |
| 3 | Kentucky | #344 | 127 |
| 4 | Mississippi | #364 | 81 |
| 5 | Arkansas | #393 | 72 |
| 6 | Tennessee | #394 | 181 |
| 7 | South Carolina | #422 | 109 |
| 8 | Idaho | #431 | 15 |
| 9 | Louisiana | #431 | 114 |
| 10 | Oklahoma | #441 | 90 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Illinois | #942 | 66 |
| 2 | Maryland | #873 | 24 |
| 3 | Arizona | #853 | 38 |
| 4 | Washington | #817 | 49 |
| 5 | Pennsylvania | #808 | 85 |
| 6 | Florida | #780 | 192 |
| 7 | Michigan | #760 | 65 |
| 8 | Colorado | #722 | 52 |
| 9 | Minnesota | #721 | 44 |
| 10 | Wisconsin | #706 | 52 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Lillie in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lila | Feminine Of Lyle From The Island. Variant Of Delilah. | Female | English |
| Lili | The Flower Lily Is A Symbol Of Innocence: Purity And Beauty. | Female | French |
| Lilia | Form Of Lilac; Having A Bluish Color LUBMILLA | Female | Russian |
| Lilli | The Flower Lily Is A Symbol Of Innocence: Purity And Beauty. | Female | German |
| Lilly | The Flower Lily Is A Symbol Of Innocence: Purity And Beauty. | Female | English |
| Lily | Lily | Female | Hebrew |
Looking for names like Lillie?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Lillie to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Lillie against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).