My aunt's name is
Leila and she's Finnish. I can't say much about the use or the impression of it in Finland, considering I don't live there.
I know a lot of Norwegianers named
Laila, and as far as I know, none of them are
Sami. Though,
Laila is fairly common in the parts of Sápmi located in Norway as well as Finland.
Laila is used in other parts of
Europe (
France, Netherlands, Czechia etc.) as well as in the Nordics. I don't want to speak on behalf of Samis, but I don't think the name would be considered exclusive to the
Sami population or People with
Sami ancestry.
I personally prefer
Leila over
Layla and
Laila (I know, I'm biased). The spelling of
Layla seems a bit off to me, but that is because the spelling doesn't really fit the pronunciation in terms of my native Language.
I like
Laila too, but I kind of associate it with ladies in their 50's.
Outside the Nordics, people will probably believe
Laila is of Arabic origin solely by the spelling, but when pronounced the difference will be more obvious.
Leila - Lay-LAH (the Finnish way).
Layla - Lay-LAH (I'm not too sure how it would work in Finland. Finns pronounce y like oo, so I guess it makes sense that this spelling is way less used in Finland.)
Laila -
LylaThis message was edited 9/6/2018, 1:30 PM