Lilen
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Meaning
a Mapuche name used in Argentina and Chile; "bush" has been suggested as its meaning, but this remains unconfirmed
The story
Lilen has a shrub in the record and a stolen drum in a children’s story. Modern Mapuche naming lists include Lilen with a shrub gloss, although its precise Mapudungun derivation remains unconfirmed. The landscape connection has substance: botanical catalogues call the evergreen Chilean shrub Azara celastrina lilén. Then there is La pequeña Lilén, Víctor Carvajal’s modern tale about a Mapuche child who takes her grandmother’s cultrún, a ceremonial drum, out to play. A fox steals it when she is distracted. The book supplies an adventure, rather than proof of an ancient name meaning. Keeping those strands distinct lets each become clearer: a name in contemporary use, a plant rooted in Chile, and a fictional child whose game has suddenly become much more complicated.
How popular is Lilen around the world?
Lilen does not appear in US Social Security baby-name records, which list only names given to at least five babies in a year. There is no popularity curve to chart: a genuinely rare pick. In Argentina, 27 newborns were given the name Lilen in 2024.
Lilen is on the official records of Argentina and Chile.
United States
under 5 a year
Lilen does not appear in US Social Security baby-name records, which list only names given to at least five babies in a year. There is no popularity curve to chart: a genuinely rare pick.
Births with a Social Security record. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration
Argentina
1 in 25,000
In Argentina, 27 newborns were given the name Lilen in 2024.
share of that year’s name registrations
Given-name components of births in Argentina 2012–2024; national cells are lower bounds and no sex split is published. Source: RENAPER (Argentina), Dirección Nacional de Población, given names 2012-2024
Chile
1 in 89,000
In Chile, 2 girls were registered as Lilen in 2021, every accent spelling counted together.
The count never rose above 8 in a year, too few to chart.
First-name registrations with Chile’s civil registry by year of registration, 1920–2021, counted as spelling groups (Sofía, Sofia and Sofìa are one name, shown with its most-registered spelling); the registry withholds nothing, nametree keeps the groups that reached 5 registrations in some year, and shares divide by every registration of the year. Source: Servicio de Registro Civil e Identificación (Chile) via the guaguas package, first-name registrations 1920-2021
Montevideo City
last on record 1990
Lilen is not on the 2011 record for Montevideo, whose registry withholds nothing, so the spelling was not given there that year.
The count never rose above 1 in a year, too few to chart.
Births in the department of Montevideo (not all of Uruguay) by first name and year of birth, 1940–2011, from the city’s civil registry, which writes names in capitals, almost always without accents; counted as spelling groups (accent and punctuation variants merged), nothing is withheld at source, and 2012 is excluded as a partial year. Source: Servicio de Registro Civil, Intendencia de Montevideo, Partidas de Registro Civil de Montevideo (Licencia de Datos Abiertos - Uruguay); 2012 dropped as partial
Not on the record in Spain, Mexico City, Puerto Rico, England and Wales, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland and Poland: those registries withhold small counts, so rare uses may sit below their floors.
Not on the France record: nametree keeps spellings that reached 20 births in some year, so rarer uses are not shown. Not on the South Australia record for 1944 to 2017: that registry withholds nothing, so this spelling was not given there in those years. Not on the Austria record for 1984 to 2025: Statistik Austria publishes every first name down to a single birth, so this name was not given there in those years (before 2010 the record covers babies with Austrian citizenship only). Not on Norway’s list: Statistics Norway lists only first names carried by 200 or more living people, so rarer names are not shown.
The Lilen deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Lilen truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Lilen fits with your family’s names and surname.
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