Alyah is a variant of Aliyah, a Hebrew word meaning "ascent" or "going up" that describes both the call to read from the Torah and the return of Jews to Israel; the Arabic name Aliya, "exalted" or "sublime", sounds the same. Both strands met in the United States, where the singer Aaliyah made the sound famous around 2000. Alyah stood at number 2675 in 2000, has stayed between roughly 2600 and 4600 since and ranks number 2899 in 2025 with 58 births.