From Hebrew Ne'ilah, referring to the closing prayer service of Yom Kippur.
Neilah takes its name from one of the most sacred moments in the Jewish liturgical calendar: Ne'ilah (נְעִילָה), the concluding service of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The word means "locking" or "closing of the gates" — referring to the ancient image of the heavenly gates being sealed at the end of the day of judgment, the final moments in which a person's fate for the coming year is inscribed and sealed. Ne'ilah is the only prayer service in the Jewish year that is recited while the ark remains open throughout, and it builds toward an emotional climax of the shofar's single long blast.
To pray during Ne'ilah is to stand at the threshold. As a given name, Neilah carries an extraordinary weight of spiritual meaning — a name given at the closing of one era and the opening of another, at the threshold between judgment and mercy. It has been used in Jewish families, particularly Ashkenazi and Sephardic communities, often given to girls born around the High Holy Days.
The name also resonates with Niall, the Old Irish name meaning "champion," through shared sounds if not etymology, giving it a kind of cross-cultural phonetic familiarity. In contemporary naming culture, Neilah occupies a rare position: it is deeply religious in origin yet sounds effortlessly modern, with the popular -ah ending and a melodic flow that places it alongside names like Nadia, Nila, and Leila. Parents who choose it often describe a desire to mark a child as someone who arrives at moments of significance — a threshold-crosser, a keeper of sacred time.