Given name & surname
Alija
Alija is a masculine given name. It is used in English and Serbo-Croatian.
Meaning & origin
Where it comes from
Alija is a romanization of Алија. Алија comes from Ottoman Turkish, and ultimately from Arabic.
Explained through its name family
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1995. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Alija through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 179
- 130 boys · 49 girls
- Most popular year
- 2013
- 13 babies
- 2025
- 5
- #12,098 for boys
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- −11%
- Easing
By the numbers
In 2025, this name appeared in 5 U.S. birth records for boys, ranking No. 12,098 among boys’ names. The recent annual counts are too incomplete to establish a ten-year comparison. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 566 as a first name in 2020.
From Social Security birth records and U.S. Census name counts for this exact spelling. Other spellings are counted separately.
Alija’s family of names
In Macedonian usage, Alija is a Roman-alphabet rendering of Алија. In Serbo-Croatian usage, Alija was borrowed from the Ottoman Turkish form علی.
Inner ring: spellings · middle: nicknames and forms · outer: across languages.
Nicknames & forms 2
Diminutives, pet forms, short forms and variants used alongside the name.
Spellings & scripts 2
The same name written differently, including transliterations into other scripts.
Across languages 1
Equivalents and cognates in other languages, plus older forms it grew from.
People named Alija
- Alija IzetbegovićBosnian politician, lawyer, philosopher and author (1925–2003)
- Alija BehmenBosnian politician (1940–2018)
- Alija AlijagićBosnian communist (1895-1922)
Listed by how widely each person is written about, which says nothing about the name itself.
Similar names
If you love Alija, these share its style, era, origin or sound, from outside its own family.