Sélma
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Sélma is a female given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Türkiye than in any other country. In Morocco it is the 29th most common given name. Recorded meaning: From Ottoman Turkish سلمى (selma) (Turkish Selma), from Arabic سَلْمَى (salmā).
- TRTürkiye≈1 in 513(inferred from the name graph)
- BRBrazil1 in 2.2K
- MAMorocco≈1 in 9.1K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Sélma itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Türkiye (inferred from the name graph)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 243 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 513 (inferred from the name graph)
≈160,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Türkiye, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts
(measured from records)Locally spelled Selma in BR Brazil, SE Sweden, ES Spain and 1 more and Salma in MA Morocco, US United States.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)- Ottoman Turkishسلمىselma(measured from records)
- Arabicسَلْمَىsalmā(measured from records)
From Ottoman Turkish سلمى (selma) (Turkish Selma), from Arabic سَلْمَى (salmā).
Cited for this meaning 6
- A concise dictionary of first names
- TDK Kişi Adları Sözlüğü (official Turkish given-name dictionary)
- Wiktionary
- Diccionario etimológico de nombres propios
- Förnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
Attested across 24 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Sélma counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TR Türkiye | — | ≈160,000 est. | ≈1 in 513 | — | Selma | 30 |
| BR Brazil | #262 | 94,743 | 1 in 2.2K | 102K | Selma | 153 |
| SE Sweden | — | 14,394 | 1 in 709 | 14K | Selma | 28 |
| US United States | — | 12,322as Salma | 1 in 27K | 12K | Salma | 243 |
| ES Spain | — | 12,012as Salma | 1 in 4.2K | 12K | Selma | 63 |
| NO Norway | — | 5,776 | 1 in 947 | 20K | — | 17 |
| MA Morocco | #29 | ≈3,900 est. | ≈1 in 9.1K | — | Salma | 124 |
| DK Denmark | — | 3,514 | 1 in 1.7K | 3.5K | — | 2 |
| IS Iceland | — | 352 | 1 in 996 | 352 | — | — |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); IBGE — Nomes (census name API); SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); Þjóðskrá Íslands — Name frequencies (NafnTíðni, registry). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Evidence
(measured from records)No register attests this spelling yet
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Sélma mean, and where does it come from?
- From Ottoman Turkish سلمى (selma) (Turkish Selma), from Arabic سَلْمَى (salmā). Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names and TDK Kişi Adları Sözlüğü (official Turkish given-name dictionary) and 4 other sources.
- Is Sélma a male or female name?
- Sélma is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- In which country does Sélma have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 160 thousand people named Sélma in Türkiye, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled selma.
- How common is the name Sélma?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 94,743 people named Sélma in 2022, about 1 in 2.2 thousand residents.
- How common is Sélma compared with other names?
- In Morocco, Sélma is the 29th most common given name of 41,711 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Sélma?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/s%C3%A9lmaThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Sélma” — the 29th most common given name in Morocco. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.