Cecille
Feminine · “blind”
Cecille doubles a letter and adds an e, and neither is audible. The French form has one l and a final e; the Latin has neither; this version takes the doubled consonant from one convention and the silent ending from another, and the result belongs to no single tradition.
How old is the name Cecille?
Cecille first appears in US birth records in 1888 — 137 years ago. The typical Cecille alive today was born around 1938, making them about 87 years old. About 400 people named Cecille are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Cecille most popular?
Cecille peaked in 1898, reaching #1098 nationally. See the whole 1898 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From a Roman family name built on the word for blind to Cecille
Our story of Cecille
Two spelling conventions have collided here and it is worth separating them. Doubling a consonant is an English habit that marks the vowel before it as short. Adding a silent e is a French habit that marks a name as a woman's. Neither convention has anything to do with the other, and neither is doing its job in this name — the vowel was not going to be long anyway, and the name was already unmistakably a woman's. What is left is decoration: two letters that make the name look more finished and change nothing at all.
Meaning
blind, at some remove
The Roman family name behind Cecilia is built on the Latin word for blind, which was an ordinary source for family names — Rome named clans after squints, warts, baldness and limps without embarrassment. By the time the name reached English through a saint it had stopped describing anybody, which is the usual fate of a descriptive name that becomes hereditary.
How the name formed
- a Roman family name built on the word for blind
- a saint carries it into Christian Europe
- French produces Cecile and English Cecilia
- American families add letters from both conventions
- Cecille appears in the record in the 1880s
Related forms: Cecile · Cecilia · Cecilia
Pronouncing Cecille
suh-SEEL
Two syllables with the stress at the back, following the French. Some American families give it three, seh-SEE-lee, which is really Cecilia wearing this spelling.
Nicknames for Cecille
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1888
- Most girls named
- 194226 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1098reached in 1898
- Change vs 2015
- 0.0%6 in 2022, from 6
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Cecille in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Cecile in French — spelling variant
- Cecilia in English — related form
- Cecilia in Italian — related form
Cecilles among us
people named Cecille are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Cecille sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- Ceci is available and works across three languages.
- The name is old, established and entirely readable.
- The spelling is genuinely rare while the name is familiar.
- Cecile and Cecilia are both commoner and will be substituted.
- Two of the letters do nothing whatever.
- It belongs to the oldest layer of the American record.
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Cecille
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Cecilles are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 400 people named Cecille are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Cecille in 2025?
- Cecille is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Cecille with classmates?
- Cecille will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More C names
The most-given names starting with C, all years combined.
Carol#2239 · Cynthia#1013 · Catherine#313 · Christine#1272 · Carolyn#1222 · Christina#770 · Charlotte#2 · Cheryl#4352
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Cecille? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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