Vilja
Torn between Vilja and another name? Compare them side by side →
Meaning
possibly from Swedish vilja or Norwegian vilje, "will", or from the Finnish word vilja, "grain"; also a feminine form of Viljar
How popular is Vilja around the world?
Vilja has no published row in the national Social Security baby-name files from 1880 through 2025. Those files omit name-and-sex counts below five, so there is no popularity curve to chart and no basis for saying the name was never used. In Norway, 45 girls were given the name Vilja in 2025.
Vilja is on the official records of Norway and South Australia.
United States
no published row
Vilja has no published row in the national Social Security baby-name files from 1880 through 2025. Those files omit name-and-sex counts below five, so there is no popularity curve to chart and no basis for saying the name was never used.
Births with a Social Security record. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration
Norway
1 in 590register 2026
In Norway, 45 girls were given the name Vilja in 2025.
share of the girls on the register for that year, SSB’s own figure
People who have or have had a Norwegian ID number, emigrants left out, from Statistics Norway’s name statistics (release of January 2026): by year of birth for 1945–2020 (everyone born that year who was ever registered in Norway, including people who registered later and people who have since died) and by year of naming from 2021; only first names carried by 200 or more living people are listed, counts under 4 are withheld, and SSB merges spellings that differ only by letters outside the Norwegian alphabet. The shares are SSB’s own, of the people of that sex and year in that count; the 2025 figure counts the children named that year, and no year is a count of births. Source: Statistics Norway (SSB), table 10467 (updated 2026-01-28)
South Australia
1 in 18,0002017
In South Australia, 1 girl was registered as Vilja in 2017.
The count never rose above 1 in a year, too few to chart.
Births registered in South Australia (not all of Australia) by first name and year of registration, 1944–2017, from the state’s Births, Deaths and Marriages registry, which publishes every name down to a single birth in capitals; a spelling its export repeats inside a year is counted once, and from 2018 only a top 100 is published, so the series ends at 2017. Source: Consumer and Business Services (South Australia), popular baby names
Austria
last on record 2020
Vilja is not on the 2025 record for Austria, which publishes every first name down to a single birth, so the name was not given there that year.
The count never rose above 1 in a year, too few to chart.
Live births in Austria by year of birth, 1984–2025, from Statistik Austria’s first-name statistics; spellings that differ only by special characters are counted together (umlauts stay apart), every name down to a single birth is published, and the count covers babies with Austrian citizenship only until 2009, every baby from 2010, and from 2015 also births abroad to mothers living in Austria. Shares divide by Statistik Austria’s count of live births from 2010, and before that by the file’s own total for the year. Source: Statistik Austria - data.statistik.gv.at (OGDEXT_VORNAMEN_1, updated 2026-07-09)
Not on the record in Spain, Mexico City, Argentina, 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 Chile record: nametree keeps spellings that reached 5 registrations in some year, so rarer uses are not shown. Not on the Montevideo record for 1940 to 2011: that registry withholds nothing, so this spelling was not given there in those years. Not on the France record: nametree keeps spellings that reached 20 births in some year, so rarer uses are not shown.
The Vilja deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Vilja truly comes from, how it traveled, and what the published record can and cannot tell us, without inventing a curve. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Vilja fits with your family’s names and surname.
Does Vilja fit YOUR family?
nametree reads your family’s names and finds the ones that belong. Free, private, no ads.
Add Vilja to your family’s tree →