Name Elia Origin, meaning, pronunciation & popularity of the name Elia

Elia is a ♀ girl’s name and a ♂ boy’s name. Elia thus belongs to the gender-neutral unisex names.

What is the origin of the name Elia?

Elia is a gender-neutral name. The masculine name is an Italian, Frisian, Dutch and Swedish form of Elijah and the feminine name derived from the name Elio.

What does the name Elia mean?

Elia means “my God is Yahweh” for boys and “sun”, “sunlight” and “sunshine” for girls.

Nicknames and Middle Names

Elia is a unisex name and can be used for little boys and girls. Nevertheless, in English speaking regions, Elia is mostly viewed as a girl’s name. If you want to name your daughter Elia, the nicknames El, Elly, Lia, Elle and Ella can be fun to use. Many parents like to choose a middle name for Elia, here are some beautiful examples: Elia Grace, Elia Quinn, Elia Faith, Elia Vanessa, Elia Ivy, Elia Riley, Elia Cassandra, Elia Agnes and Elia Rose.

Famous name bearers and Elia in pop culture

• A famous Elia is director and actor Elia Kazan, who lived from 1909 to 2003. Born as an Istanbul resident, his parents migrated to the United States when Elia was a little boy. There, he studied acting and started his career as a theater actor and later movie actor. He rose to fame as a director and over the decades, he directed a large number of movies. On the peak of his career he worked with Hollywood royalty like Marlon Brando, James Dean and Julie Harris. Many of his movies (for example Pinky, Viva Zapata! and East of Eden) were awarded. He was a great influence and inspiration to many contemporary directors, such as Martin Scorsese, who made a tribute film to Elia named “A letter to Elia” (2010).
• Another Elia is the French singer ELIA, a newcomer talent who participated in the “Eurovision France 2022”, where the French people selected a talent from their country to represent France at the “Eurovision Song Contest” in Turin 2022. Unfortunately, ELIA didn’t win this contest, but her active social media presence shows, that she has a lot more to offer and will continue to work on her singer career.
• Elia Wilkinson Peattie was an American writer and journalist. She lived from 1862 til 1935 and was born in Michigan. After she married Robert Burns Peattie, a Chicago journalist, she started to write short stories, which were published in several newspapers. The fact that she only went to school until the age of fourteen and she had no higher education makes her career even more remarkable. In 1866, she became a reporter for the “Chicago Tribune” and the “Chicago Daily News”. After moving to Omaha, she went on to be the chief editorial writer for the “Omaha World Herald”. Her writings were about society and also political issues and she didn’t refrain from criticism on the brutal treatment of Native Americans like in the massacre of Wounded Knee in 1890. Later in her life she wrote several books for children and young adults, for example “The story of America” (1889).
• If you are a fan of the HBO series “Game of Thrones”, that aired from 2011 to 2019 and want to choose a name from this franchise, Elia might be a good and more subtle choice than Daenerys or Cersei. A character that was never seen on screen yet was very important to the storyline was Elia Martell. Elia was a princess of the House of Dorne and died before the story of “Game of Thrones” takes place. She died under horrendous circumstances and her brother Oberyn Martell, played by Pedro Pascal, tries to take revenge for her death.

Pronunciation of Elia

Variants of the name Elia