A modern spelling variant of Elijah, from Hebrew, meaning my God is Yahweh.
Ilijah is a variant orthography of Elijah, one of the great prophetic names of the Hebrew Bible. The name derives from the Hebrew אֵלִיָּהוּ (Eliyahu), meaning "my God is Yahweh" — a declaration of faith built directly into the name's structure.
Elijah the Tishbite is one of the most dramatic figures in the entire Hebrew scriptures: he confronted the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, was fed by ravens in the wilderness, heard God not in wind or earthquake or fire but in a still small voice, and was ultimately taken to heaven in a chariot of fire — one of only two figures in the Hebrew Bible said not to have died in the ordinary sense. The I- spelling of Ilijah, while less common than Elijah, has roots in Slavic and Eastern European traditions of the name — Ilija is the Serbian, Croatian, and Macedonian form, and Ilija and Ilya are venerated as saints' names throughout Orthodox Christianity. The variant also appears in African American naming traditions, where creative respelling has long served as a form of cultural individuality and self-definition, transforming inherited names into something personally owned.
Elijah/Ilijah experienced a remarkable revival in the late twentieth century — propelled in part by its association with Elijah Wood, who rose to fame in the 1990s and found global recognition as Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. The I- spelling offers just enough distinction from the crowded Elijah space to feel genuinely individual, while keeping all the name's ancient power entirely intact.