Ilya

Ilya

Origin
Word/name	Russian-language or alternatively Kurdish
Meaning	"My god is He" (Russian meaning) or "great or glorious" (Kurdish meaning)
Other names
Related names	Elijah, Ilya, Iliya, Ilja, Ilyusha, Ilyushenka, Ilyich, Ilyinichna or Ilia

Ilya, Iliya, Ilja, or Ilia is the Russian-language form of the male name Elijah, meaning "My god is He". It is pronounced with stress on the second syllable. The diminutive form is Ilyusha or Ilyushenka. The Russian patronymic for a son of Ilya is "Ilyich", and a daughter is "Ilyinichna".

Ilya is also a Kurdish name meaning great and glorious.

Famous namesakes

Mythical/biblical figures

• Ilya Muromets, Russian folk hero
• Elijah, a Hebrew prophet of the ninth century BC
• Elias, another name for the prophet Elijah (St Ilya in Russian)

Real people

• Ilya Ilf, Russian author of Twelve Chairs and the Golden Calf
• Ilya Bryzgalov, ice hockey player
• Ilya Prigogine, Nobel Prize-winning physicist
• Ilya Mechnikov, Nobel Prize-winning microbiologist
• Ilya Yefimovich Repin, Russian painter
• Ilya Ehrenburg, Russian writer and Soviet cultural ambassador
• Ilya Kovalchuk, ice hockey player
• Ilya Ulyanov, father of Soviet revolutionary Vladimir Lenin
• Ilya Tchaikovsky, father of composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
• Ilya Salkind, movie producer

Fictional characters

• Illyasviel von Einzbern, a character in Fate/stay night
• Illya Kuryakin, a character in The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

Music

• Ilya (Bristol band), from Bristol

Related

• Branch, in East African languages
• "There is" (il y a), in French