Ilya, Iliya, Ilia, Ilja, Ilija, or Illia (Russian: Илья́, romanized: Il'ja, IPA: [ɪlʲˈja], or Russian: Илия́, romanized: Ilija, IPA: [ɪlʲɪˈja]; Ukrainian: Ілля́, romanized: Illia, IPA: [iˈlʲːɑ]; Belarusian: Ілья́, romanized: Iĺja IPA: [ilʲˈja]) is the East Slavic form of the male Hebrew name Eliyahu (Eliahu), meaning "My God is Yahu/Jah."^[1] It comes from the Byzantine Greek pronunciation of the vocative (Ilía) of the Greek Elias (Ηλίας, Ilías). It is pronounced with stress on the second syllable. The diminutive form is Iliusha or Iliushen'ka. The Russian patronymic for a son of Ilya is "Ilyich", and a daughter is "Ilyinichna".

People with the name

Real people

• Ilya (Archbishop of Novgorod), 12th-century Russian Orthodox cleric and saint
• Ilya Ivanovitch Alekseyev (1772–1830), commander of the Russian Imperial Army
• Ilya Borok (born 1993), Russian jiujitsu fighter
• Ilya Bryzgalov (born 1980), Russian ice hockey goalie
• Ilya Ehrenburg (1891–1967), Russian writer and Soviet cultural ambassador
• Ilya Glazunov (1930–2017), Russian painter
• Ilya Gringolts (born 1982), violinist
• Ilya Grubert (born 1954), violinist
• Ilya Ilf (1897–1937), Russian author of Twelve Chairs and the Golden Calf
• Ilya Ilyin (born 1988), Kazakhstani Olympic weightlifter
• Ilya Ivashka (born 1994), Belarusian tennis player
• Ilya Kabakov (1933–2023), Russian-American conceptual artist of Jewish origin
• Ilya Kaler (born 1963), violinist
• Ilya Kaminsky (born 1977), Ukrainian-American-Jewish poet
• Ilya Kovalchuk (born 1983), Russian ice hockey winger in the KHL and formerly the NHL for the Atlanta Thrashers, New Jersey Devils, L.A. Kings and Washington Capitals
• Ilya Kuvshinov (born 1990), animator
• Ilya Lagutenko (born 1968), lead singer of the Russian rock band Mumiy Troll
• Ilya Lobanov (born 1996), Kazakhstani ice hockey player
• Ilya Espino de Marotta, Marine engineer and leader of the Panama Canal Expansion Project
• Ilya Mechnikov (1845–1916), Russian Nobel Prize-winning microbiologist
• Ilya Petrov (born 1995), Russian footballer
• Ilya Prigogine (1917–2003), physical chemist and Nobel Prize-winning physicist
• Ilya Prusikin (born 1985), Russian musician, singer, record producer, vlogger, video director and screenwriter
• Ilya Piatetski-Shapiro (1929–2009), Russian-Jewish-Israeli mathematician
• Ilya Yashin (born 1983), Russian political figure
• Ilya Yefimovich Repin (1844–1930), Russian painter
• Ilya Salkind (born 1947), movie producer
• Ilya Salmanzadeh (born 1986), Persian-Swedish music producer
• Ilya Samsonov (born 1997), a Russian goaltender for the Toronto Maple Leafs, formerly Washington Capitals
• Ilya Sorokin (born 1995), a Russian goaltender for the New York Islanders
• Ilya Strebulaev, Russian-American financial economist
• Ilya Sutskever, computer scientist
• Ilya Tsipursky (1934–2022), Soviet judoka and sambist
• Ilya Ulyanov (1831–1886), father of Soviet revolutionary Vladimir Lenin
• Ilya Zhitomirskiy (1989–2011), Russian-American founder of Diaspora
• Ilya Serov (born 1986), Russian-American trumpeter and singer
• Ilya Dzhirkvelov (born 1927), author and KGB defector
• Ilya Oberyshyn (1921-2007), Ukrainian insurgent

Religious figures

• Ilya Muromets, Orthodox monastic saint, Russian folk hero
• Elijah, a Hebrew prophet of the ninth century BCE, known in Russian as Iliya the Prophet (Илия́ Проро́к)
• Ali or Eli (Arabic name), a cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and the first Imam of shiahs. (There is a quote from Imam Ali "I am called Elya / Alya among Jews, Elia among Christians, Ali for my father, and Haydar for my mother".)^[2][3]

Fictional characters

• Ilya Pasternak, fictional character from the video game Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation
• Illya Kuryakin, a main character in the TV show The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
• Ilya Tretiak, a character in the 1997 film The Saint
• Ilya in the book Letters from Rifka
• Ilya, a character in the book and film adaption Heaven Knows What
• Ilya Afanasyevich Shamrayev, a character in Anton Chekhov's The Seagull
• Ilya Stepanovich Igolkin, a character in Vladimir Obruchev's Plutonia
• Ilya (Ilyusha) Snegiryov, a character in Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov
• Ilya, Also known as Julian Devorak, plague doctor from "The Arcana"
• Illyasviel von Einzbern, a character in Fate series by Type-Moon
• Ilya Goryunov, a character from Dmitry Glukhovski´s book Text

Music

• Illya Kuryaki and the Valderramas