From the ancient Greek name for Troy (Ilion); also a Slavic form of Elijah meaning 'my God is Yahweh.'
Ilia is the Eastern European and South Caucasian form of Elijah, the great Hebrew prophet whose name means "my God is Yahweh" — a declaration of faith compressed into two syllables. The name traveled from Hebrew scripture through Greek (as "Elias") and then into Slavic, Georgian, Bulgarian, and Albanian naming traditions, where it settled as Ilia, Ilya, or Ilija depending on the region. In Georgian — the language of the Caucasus republic — Ilia is particularly resonant, and it is here that the name found one of its most distinguished bearers.
Ilia Chavchavadze (1837–1907) is revered as the father of Georgian national identity: a poet, journalist, and social reformer who championed the Georgian language and people during the Russian imperial period, he was assassinated and later canonized by the Georgian Orthodox Church as "the Righteous." His name became almost synonymous with Georgian cultural pride. In Russia and the broader Slavic world, Ilya has been one of the great epic names — the legendary hero Ilya Muromets, the Kievan bogatyr of folklore, gave it a heroic, larger-than-life quality that persists in Russian cultural memory.
In the English-speaking world, Ilia has begun to emerge as a quietly cosmopolitan choice — recognizably classical, with Mediterranean and Eastern European warmth, but uncommonly used enough to feel fresh. Its three soft vowels give it a flowing, musical quality, and its deep roots in both biblical tradition and pan-European folklore give parents who choose it a great deal of quiet history to pass on.