Milica

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Girl · Old Slavic

Milica

Say it: MEE-lee-tsah

Try it with your surname

Meaning

From Slavic mil 'dear, gracious' with the diminutive suffix -ica.

Certainscholars agree on this meaning.

Beloved

Borne by the wife of Prince Lazar, who was killed at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 and whom she succeeded as regent; it has stayed one of the most popular Serbian girls' names.

Its wave through time

Rare in the records

In the United States

051018801900192019401960198020002020Peak 2011per million babies of that sex
  • 370 babies given this name since 1956
  • At its height in 2011, about 1 in 103,400 girls
  • 12 babies in 2020

Through the ages

  1. The High and Late Middle Ages1100 to 1450
  2. The Renaissance1400 to 1600
  3. The Age of Revolutions1750 to 1837
  4. Victorian and Belle Époque1837 to 1914
  5. The Modern Age1880 to today

Used by

SerbianCroatianBulgarianRussian

The family of the name

Other spellings: Милица

BulgarianMilitsa
RussianMilitsa
MacedonianMilica

Famous bearers

  • Princess Milica of Serbia, wife of Prince Lazar

Names worth a look

Where this comes from

  • Medieval Slavic chronicles and charters
  • Royal and noble genealogies
  • National birth statistics of European countries source
  • United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source

Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.

Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.