Salma

given name · Latin script

Meaning: Salma is a biblical name of Hebrew origin meaning "garment"

Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

/salmə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Salma is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Morocco than in any other country. In Tanzania it is the 27th most common given name.

rarermore common
  • MAMorocco≈1 in 275(inferred from the name graph)
  • TZTanzania≈1 in 518
  • BDBangladesh≈1 in 1.3K

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 Salma 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.

Morocco (inferred from the name graph)

≈130,000 people, est.

6 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
295 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 275 (inferred from the name graph)

Morocco, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

SalmaLatin(measured from records)
ซัลมาThai(measured from records)
ΣαλμάGreek(measured from records)
살마Hangul(measured from records)
СалмаCyrillic(measured from records)
სალმაGeorgian(measured from records)

2 other spellings are counted as the same name:

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)

Salma is a biblical name of Hebrew origin meaning "garment." In the Old Testament, Salma was a descendant of Judah known as the founder of the historic town of Bethlehem.

Sources 1

  • Biblical Names Compiled Database

Attested across 11 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Salma 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.

Where Salma is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
MA Morocco#184≈130,000 est.≈1 in 275—Salma71
BD Bangladesh#48≈120,000 est.≈1 in 1.3KlistedSalma82
TZ Tanzania#27≈110,000 est.≈1 in 518—Salma37
BR Brazil—94,743as Selma1 in 2.2K102K—4
PK Pakistan#221≈39,000 est.≈1 in 6.1KlistedSalma69
SE Sweden#92614,394as Selma1 in 70914KSalma19
TN Tunisia#464≈14,000 est.≈1 in 830—Salma28
US United States—12,3221 in 27K12KSalma295
NO Norway—5,776as Selma1 in 94720K—11

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); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; 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). 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Salma is also recorded as 8 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Portuguese given name30 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Brazil, Egypt, Morocco, Israel

    Languages: Portuguese, Arabic, Hebrew

    Also written Selma, סלמה, Sélma, Sélmà, S͇e͇l͇m͇a͇

  • French given name82 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, Mexico, United States, Argentina

    Languages: French, Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Sälmä, Sãlmã, Sàlmà, Sâlmâ, Sālmā

  • Indonesian given name11 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Morocco

    Languages: Indonesian, Malay

    Also written 'Salma, Šalma, Saĺma, Sàlmà, Sälma

  • Turkish given name26 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Türkiye, Syria, India, Iraq

    Languages: Turkish, Uzbek, Azerbaijani

    Also written Салма, Şalma, Sãlmä, Šålmä, Şàlma

  • Russian given name81 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Morocco

    Languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Kazakh

    Also written Сальма, Салма, Sal'Ma, Sàlmà, Sälmá

  • a separate name3 spellings in the group

    Also written Salmā, Salmá

  • Swedish given name12 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Sweden, Denmark, Tanzania, Norway

    Languages: Swedish, Danish, Norwegian

    Also written Sàlmà, Salmá, Sàlmä, Sàlma, Sälmâ

  • Finnish given name30 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, Morocco, United States, United Kingdom

    Languages: Finnish, Estonian

    Also written Sàlmà, Sälmä, Sàlma, Sẳlmẳ, Śàļmâ

40 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Salma 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.

  • The Hebrew name Salma (שַׂלְמָא) is likely derived from a word meaning "garment" or "mantle".

    as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database

  • In biblical genealogies, Salma serves as a crucial link connecting the lineage of Judah to the historically and prophetically significant town of Bethlehem. His role as the town's founder foreshadows its importance in the future of Israel, particularly as the ancestral home of King David and the prophesied birthplace of the Messiah.

    as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database

  • In Swedish, Salma är ett arabiskt namn som betyder ’oskadad, frisk’. En variantform är → Selma. En känd namnbärare är den mexikansk-amerikanska skådespelerskan Salma Hayek (f. 1966).

    as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon

  • In Arabic, peace; feminine of Salm

    as a nameA Dictionary of Muslim Names

  • In Arabic, pacifist, peaceful

    as a nameA Dictionary of Muslim Names

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)

192019401960198020002020Salma Khadra Jayyusi, b. 1926Salma Agha, b. 1956Salma Hayek, b. 1966Salma Yaqoob, b. 1971Lalla Salma, b. 1978Salma De Nora, b. 1979Princess Salma bint Abdullah of Jordan, b. 2000Salma Paralluelo, b. 2003

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)

Informalनमस्ते Salma जी,Hi Salma, (English)

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 109 sources across 56 countries.

Official registers attesting Salma
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202012K#2,161
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—2K#1,078
BR BrazilIBGE — Nomes (census name API)—2K#6,037
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)20221.9K—
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—1.8K#5,380
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—1.6K#1,208
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)20201.5K—
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)2025568—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)2025278—
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202054#2,161
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)201052—

Reference works 6

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

Where does the name Salma come from?
Salma is a biblical name of Hebrew origin meaning "garment." In the Old Testament, Salma was a descendant of Judah known as the founder of the historic town of Bethlehem. Recorded by Biblical Names Compiled Database.
Is Salma a male or female name?
Salma 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 does the name Salma mean?
Recorded meaning: Salma is a biblical name of Hebrew origin meaning "garment."
In which country does Salma have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 129 thousand people named Salma in Morocco, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled salma.
What are other forms of the name Salma?
In the etymology graph, Selma, Salamatu and Shulammite are forms of the same name in other languages.
How do you pronounce Salma?
A machine transcription gives /salmə/ (IPA) for Hindi.
How common is the name Salma?
In the United States, the national register counted 12,322 people named Salma in 2020, about 1 in 27 thousand residents.
How common is Salma compared with other names?
In Morocco, Salma is the 184th most common given name of 41,711 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Salma?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/salma

The 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, “Salma” — the 184th most common given name in Morocco. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Salma parses inside a full name →