Cecilia
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Irish form of Cecily, more common in Ireland than Cecily itself
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/θeθilja/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Cecilia is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Ecuador it is the 32nd most common given name.
- CLChile≈1 in 322(inferred from the name graph)
- ARArgentina≈1 in 474
- SVEl Salvador≈1 in 485
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- #436 (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 462 (measured from records)
- 1 in 155 (inferred from the name graph)
≈240,000 people, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Sweden
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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)
Irish form of Cecily, more common in Ireland than Cecily itself.
Sources 1
- Irish first names
Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Cecilia 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈240,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.7K | — | Cecilia | 49 |
| BR Brazil | #165 | 171,217 | 1 in 1.2K | 171K | Cecilia | 184 |
| NG Nigeria | — | ≈160,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | — | Cecilia | 35 |
| US United States | — | 109,389 | 1 in 3K | 109K | Cecilia | 462 |
| PH Philippines | #233 | ≈110,000 est. | ≈1 in 1K | — | Cecilia | 119 |
| AR Argentina | #99 | ≈96,000 est. | ≈1 in 474 | 159 | Cecilia | 171 |
| SE Sweden | — | 65,798 | 1 in 155 | 66K | Cecilia | 95 |
| CL Chile | #43 | ≈56,000 est. | ≈1 in 322 | 1 | Cecilia | 154 |
| EC Ecuador | #32 | 25,781 | 1 in 656 | 26K | Cecilia | 83 |
| SV El Salvador | #60 | ≈13,000 est. | ≈1 in 485 | — | Cecilia | 47 |
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: RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); SRCEI — Nombres más comunes (guaguas, 1920–2021); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); INEC — civil registry names. 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).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Cecilia is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, The blind one or the sixth; feminine form of Cecil.
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
From Latin. See main dictionary. Masculine form: Cecilio. Celso $ From the Latin family name Celsus, ‘tall’, originally a nickname.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
A form of Cecily used in Ireland, where it is more common than Cecily itself. Cecily [Sisi/e] (f) A feminine of Cecil. It was introduced into Ireland by the Normans, where it took the Gaelic form Sile (English Sheila, q.v.). Sisile is a later form.
as a nameIrish first names
In Italian, do nome lat. Caecilia; matronímico do tronco familiar
as a nameDicionário dos sobrenomes italianos
In Italian, Dal lat. Caecilia, femminile di Caecilius; nome dell'antica gens romana.
as a nameDizionario Dei Nomi e Cognomi Italiani
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Cecilia Helena Payne Gaposchkinb. 1900USBritish-born American astronomer
- Suzy Parkerb. 1932USnot in their usual nameAmerican model and actress (1932–2003)
- Cecilia Rothb. 1956ARArgentine actress
- Cécilia Attiasb. 1957FRformer wife of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy
- Cecilia Peckb. 1958USAmerican actress and director
- Cecil Boloccob. 1965CLnot in their usual nameChilean television presenter and beauty pageant contestant
- Cecilia Bartolib. 1966ITItalian opera singer (born 1966)
- Cecilia Malmströmb. 1968SESwedish politician
- Jennifer Espositob. 1973USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress
- Sally Hawkinsb. 1976GBnot in their usual nameEnglish actress (1976–)
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 133 sources across 70 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 171K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 170K | #194 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 109K | #517 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 104K | #458 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 66K | #52 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 46K | — |
| EC Ecuador | INEC — civil registry names | 2024 | 26K | #76 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 23K | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 2.5K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 822 | #194 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 192 | #517 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Nombres de nacimientos (2012–present) | 2024 | 102 | #747 |
Reference works 7
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Cecilia mean, and where does it come from?
- Irish form of Cecily, more common in Ireland than Cecily itself. Recorded by Irish first names.
- Is Cecilia a male or female name?
- Cecilia 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.
- What are other forms of the name Cecilia?
- In the etymology graph, Sheila, Celia and Cecile are forms of the same name in other languages; Sissy, Cece and Silja are recorded short or pet forms.
- How do you pronounce Cecilia?
- A machine transcription gives /θeθilja/ (IPA) for Spanish.
- In which country does Cecilia have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 244 thousand people named Cecilia in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled cecilia.
- Where is Cecilia most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Cecilia is densest in Sweden — about 1 in 155 people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Cecilia?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 171,217 people named Cecilia in 2022, about 1 in 1.2 thousand residents.
- How common is Cecilia compared with other names?
- In Ecuador, Cecilia is the 32nd most common given name of 27,061 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Cecilia?
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/ceciliaThe 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, “Cecilia” — the 32nd most common given name in Ecuador. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.