Selia
Meaning "Moon" or "Lunar", a feminine name of Arabic origin.
Name Census estimates that about 543 living Americans carry the first name Selia. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Selia today is around 35 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Selia births was 2003 (20 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Selia. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Selia with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
543
~ 1 in 631,223 Americans
Peak year
2003
20 babies that year
Average age
35
years old
2024 SSA rank
#11,945
Tracked since 1918
Census
Selia in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 758 people with the first name Selia, which placed it at #15,241 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#15,241
National first-name rank
People counted
758
758 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
62.7% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Selia
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Selia is Hispanic at 62.7%. The next largest groups are White (22.7%) and Black (8.4%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Selia described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Selia at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino62.7% · 475
- White22.7% · 172
- Black or African American8.4% · 64
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.0% · 23
- Two or more races2.4% · 18
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.8% · 6
Popularity
Selia: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Selia from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 12 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 147 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 2000s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Selia by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Selia during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Selias live
Origin
Meaning and history of Selia
The name Selia is of Greek origin, derived from the word "selene," meaning "moon." This name was particularly prevalent in ancient Greece during the Classical period, around the 5th century BCE. The moon held significant symbolic value in Greek mythology, often associated with the goddesses Artemis and Selene.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Selia can be found in the works of the ancient Greek philosopher Plutarch, who lived between 46-120 CE. In his writings, he mentions a woman named Selia, though little is known about her beyond her name.
During the Byzantine era, spanning from the 4th to the 15th centuries, the name Selia was occasionally used among the Greek population, particularly in regions like Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) and the Greek islands.
In the 16th century, a notable figure named Selia Venetian was a renowned poet and scholar in Venice, Italy. Her works were widely celebrated during the Renaissance period, though few details about her personal life have survived.
In the 18th century, Selia Andersen (1722-1798) was a Danish composer and musician who gained recognition for her compositions for the harpsichord and her contributions to the musical culture of Copenhagen.
Another influential figure was Selia Marsden (1874-1942), a British suffragette and activist who fought for women's rights to vote and worked towards social reforms in the early 20th century.
While the name Selia has remained relatively uncommon throughout history, it has been used across various cultures and time periods, often associated with the moon's symbolic significance and occasionally adopted by notable individuals in literature, music, and social movements.
People
Selia + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Selia as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with S
Other first names starting with S with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Selia: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Selia?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 543 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Selia going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 631,223 US residents.
Is Selia a common name?
We classify Selia as "Very Rare". It ranks above 85.3% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 739 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Selia most popular?
The single biggest year for Selia was 2003, when 20 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Selia is about 35 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Selia in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 758 people with the name Selia, or 0.25 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #15,241 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Selia in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Selia?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Selia appears almost entirely female. Of the 757 people counted with this name, 100.0% were female and only a very small share were male. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Selia?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Selia is Hispanic at 62.7%. The next largest groups are White (22.7%) and Black (8.4%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Selia most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Selia in the 2020 Census, accounting for 62.7% (475 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Selia in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Selia a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Selia in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Selia still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Selia in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Selia can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people are named Selia?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.