Sela
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in Spanish: inflection of ser:
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈsɛɫə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Sela is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Israel than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 647K(measured from records)
- ILIsrael≈1 in 5.3K
- XKKosovo≈1 in 47K
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 Sela 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.
- Israel (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 191 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 5.3K (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,700 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Israel, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Sella in 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)
Ewe/Luya/Hebrew: 'savior'; 'first woman' (Luya); 'rock' (Hebrew).
Sources 1
- African Names
Attested across 23 languages in the etymology graph.
How Sela is read(measured from records)
Sela is one spelling over 4 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- Hebrew38%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Sela in Hebrew.
- English18%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Sela in English.
- Spanish9.5%
inflection of ser:
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Indonesian5.2%
interval, break (time in between two events)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Sela, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Sela 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IL Israel | ≈1,700 est. | ≈1 in 5.3K | — | Sela | 39 |
| BR Brazil | 1,237as Sella | 1 in 171K | 1.2K | — | 3 |
| TZ Tanzania | ≈670 est. | ≈1 in 87K | — | Sela | 9 |
| AR Argentina | 647as Sella | 1 in 70K | 647 | — | 1 |
| US United States | 514 | 1 in 647K | 1.4K | Sella | 191 |
| CH Switzerland | 79 | 1 in 106K | 79 | Sela | 8 |
| XK Kosovo | ≈42 est. | ≈1 in 47K | 309 | — | — |
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: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); ASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). 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)
Sela is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Ewe/Luya/Hebrew: 'savior'; 'first woman' (Luya); 'rock' (Hebrew).
as a nameAfrican Names
In pi, Son of Atthadassī Buddha in his last lay life.’
as a nameDictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol II (N-H)
In lua, to pay the dowry for a wdfe — given to parents of bride by the groom.
as a wordGrammar and Dictionary of the Buluba-Lulua Language
In non, inflection of seli m (“harness”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- Camilo José Celab. 1916ESnot in their usual nameSpanish writer (1916–2002)
- Michael Selab. 1924ILIsraeli immunologist (1924–2022)
- Paloma Celab. 1943ESnot in their usual nameSpanish actor and model (1943-2019)
- Avraham Selab. 1945ILIsraeli political scientist (born 1945)
- Guy Sellab. 1964ILIsraeli CEO
- Zlil Selab. 1965ILIsraeli mathematician
- Lhasa de Selab. 1972CAAmerican singer
- Jonathan Selab. 1978ILFrench-born Israeli cinematographer
- Rotem Selab. 1983ILIsraeli actress, television host, and model
- Ana Celab. 1983ESnot in their usual nameSpanish actor
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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 65 sources across 37 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 613 | #14,198 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 590 | #40,105 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 514 | #42,237 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 379 | #51,583 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 79 | #13,215 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 46 | — |
Reference works 5
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
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
- How do you pronounce Sela?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈsɛɫə/ (IPA) for Hebrew.
- Where does the name Sela come from?
- Ewe/Luya/Hebrew: 'savior'; 'first woman' (Luya); 'rock' (Hebrew). Recorded by African Names.
- What does the name Sela mean?
- In Spanish, inflection of ser:
- In which country does Sela have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.7 thousand people named Sela in Israel, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled sela.
- How common is the name Sela?
- In the United States, the national register counted 514 people named Sela in 2010, about 1 in 647 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Sela?
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/selaThe 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, “Sela”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.