• Origin: Biblical Hebrew צִלָּה
• Meaning: “shade, shadow; bell.”
• Gender: Female
• Eng (ZIL-luh)

The name is Hebrew, either derived from צל (tsel) (shadow) or צלל (tsalal) (to ring like a bell). In Genesis 4:19, it is the name of one of the two wives of Lamech.

Though it never became a widespread Jewish name until recently, it had usage in the Protestant Anglo world since the 16th-century and experienced mild popularity in the mid to late 19th-century. It appeared in the U.S. Top 100 between 1881 and 1886, peaking at #679. It was borne by Zillah Oakes (circ. 1870s), the namesake of the city of Zillah, Washington. It was also borne by New Zealand Politician, Zillah Smith Gill (1859-1937).

In English literature, Lord Byron used it as the name of the wife of Abel in his 1821 play, Cain. It is the name of a servant in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847), and the name of the titular heroin in the 1865 operetta by Australian composer, William Wilkins Russell. In recent years, it is the name of a character in Madeleine L’Engle’s, A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978).

It may have occasionally been used as a form or short form of Cecilia.

Other forms include:

• Sella Σέλλα Селла (Armenian, French, Greek, Italian, Polish, Russian, Slovak, Spanish)
• Zilla (Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Scandinavian, Spanish)
• Sille, Zille, Selle, Zelle (French)
• Sela სელა (Georgian, Lithuanian, Portuguese)
• Tzila, Tsila Цілла (Hebrew, Ukrainian)
• Cilla (Hungarian, Polish)
• Cillá (Hungarian)
• Silla (Latvian)
• Zila (Portuguese)

Sources

• https://www.behindthename.com/name/zillah
• https://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Zillah.html
• https://biblehub.com/hebrew/6741.htm
• https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/zillah-bible
• https://www.nordicnames.de/wiki/Zilla