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Selma
Pronounced /ˈsɛlmə/
Rank in 2024
#2,768
Born in 2024
61
Peak year
1918 · #223
Origin
Not recorded
1880 to 2024
UncommonIts story in numbers
- In 2024, 61 girls were named Selma, about 1 in every 26,446.
- It peaked in 1918 with 798 babies, ranked #223.
- It appears in the very first year of records, 1880.
- 26,820 girls have been named Selma since 1880.
Who else has this name
Babies named Selma per 1,000 born in each generation, on one shared scale.
- 0.7Greatest1901–27
- 0.2Silent1928–45
- <0.1Boomers1946–64
- <0.1Gen X1965–80
- <0.1Millennials1981–96
- <0.1Gen Z1997–12
- <0.1Gen Alpha2013–24
Greatest: 13,535 babies, 0.66 per 1,000. Silent: 4,846 babies, 0.23 per 1,000. Boomers: 2,015 babies, 0.06 per 1,000. Gen X: 531 babies, 0.02 per 1,000. Millennials: 410 babies, 0.01 per 1,000. Gen Z: 1,398 babies, 0.05 per 1,000. Gen Alpha: 971 babies, 0.05 per 1,000.
Meaning and origin
Taken to use in the 19th century when similar-sounding names, Elma, Thelma, Alma, Wilma, etc. were in vogue. Perhaps a shortening of Anselma, or from the name of a place in the James Macpherson's Ossian cycle of epic poems, itself from Scottish Gaelic sealladh + math (“good vision”). In some cases perhaps borrowed from Turkish Selma, from Arabic سَلْمَى (salmā).
- (countable) A female given name.
- Origin
- Not recorded
- Say it
- /ˈsɛlmə/
From Wiktionary’s entry for Selma, CC BY-SA 4.0.