Variant of Lila or Lillian, evoking Latin 'lilium' (lily) or Hebrew 'night.'
Lillah is a softened, contemplative spelling of Lilah, a name that draws from at least two ancient wells. In Arabic, it echoes Layla — meaning night, dusk, or the intoxicating beauty of darkness — made immortal in the classical Persian and Arabic poetic tradition of Layla and Majnun, the archetypal doomed lovers whose story predates Romeo and Juliet by centuries. In Hebrew, Lilah connects to the root layil, also meaning night, and carries the same nocturnal mystique.
Some scholars also trace the name as a diminutive of Delilah, from the Hebrew for delicate or languishing. The spelling with the doubled 'l' and the soft 'ah' ending gives Lillah a gentler, more lyrical silhouette than its variants. It appeared in Victorian England alongside the fashion for floral and melodic names, riding the same wave as Lily, Lila, and Lilac.
Across the 19th and early 20th centuries the name carried a Pre-Raphaelite sensibility — slightly dreamy, steeped in romantic imagery, well-suited to the aesthetic movement's fascination with feminine beauty and antiquity. Today Lillah occupies the sweet spot between familiar and unusual. It has the warmth of a grandmother's name — the kind found in a family Bible — without feeling heavy or formal. Parents drawn to names like Isla, Nora, or Clara often discover Lillah as a slightly more poetic alternative that preserves that same soft, timeless quality while offering a spelling that distinguishes it on a page.