Ayla has more than one origin: in Turkish it means "moonlight" or "halo of the moon", and as a Hebrew name it is a form of Elah, "oak tree". American readers met it in Jean M. Auel's 1980 novel The Clan of the Cave Bear, whose Ice Age heroine is called Ayla. The name ranked number 874 in the United States in 2000, rose from number 265 in 2015 to a peak of number 69 in 2024, its first year in the top 100, and ranks number 77 among girls in 2025.