Celest
Feminine · “heavenly”
In 1886 a Paris instrument maker built a keyboard whose hammers strike small steel plates, and the sound was so unlike anything else that he named it for the sky: the celesta, the heavenly one. Tchaikovsky heard it, bought one quietly so no rival would get there first, and gave it the Sugar Plum Fairy.
How old is the name Celest?
Celest first appears in US birth records in 1908 — 117 years ago. The typical Celest alive today was born around 2000, making them about 25 years old. About 1,000 people named Celest are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Celest most popular?
Celest peaked in 1908, reaching #2101 nationally. Today it ranks #10917, 8,816 places below that high. See the whole 1908 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From caelum to Celest
The story of Celest
Caelum is the plain Latin word for the sky, and caelestis is its adjective: skyey, heavenly, of the upper air. French turned the adjective into a name, Celeste, and used it steadily from the eighteenth century onward. It traveled into Italian and Spanish, where celeste is still the ordinary word for the color of a clear sky, so the name is heard there as a shade of blue as much as a reference to heaven. Celest is the French name with the final e worn off in American paperwork, which happens to French names constantly and which removes the one letter telling a reader the word is not English.
Meaning
heavenly, of the sky
From Latin caelestis, belonging to the sky, from caelum, the sky or heaven. The same root gives celestial, cerulean and, by a long route through Old French, the ordinary English word ceiling — the sky of a room.
How the name formed
- caelum
- caelestis
- Celeste
- Celest
Related forms: Celeste · Celeste · Celeste · Celeste
Pronouncing Celest
suh-LEST
Two syllables, stress on the second. The French Celeste is say-LEST with a fuller first vowel, and the Spanish and Italian have three syllables, seh-LES-teh, because the final e is sounded.
Nicknames for Celest
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
- 1908
- Most girls named
- 200456 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2101reached in 1908
- Change vs 2024
- −50.0%8 in 2025, from 16
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.
Celest in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Celeste in French — same name
- Celeste in Italian — same name
- Celeste in Spanish — same name
- Celeste in Portuguese — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas.
Celests among us
people named Celest are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 200,908 born in 2025 was named Celest
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Celest sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Celest beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Celest in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled meaning that is concrete and visible rather than abstract.
- Two syllables and no sound in it that any European language would struggle with.
- Cece works at once and needs no explaining.
- Celeste is the standard spelling and the missing e will be put back by nearly everyone.
- In Spanish and Italian the word means sky blue, so it reads there as a color first.
- It sits close to Celia, Celina and Cecilia and will be confused with all three.
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What they receive
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Celest
Feminine · #10917 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Celests are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,000 people named Celest are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Celest in 2025?
- Celest ranks #10917 among US girl names in 2025, with 8 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Celest?
- About 1 in every 200,908 US girls born in 2025 was named Celest — 8 in all.
- Will my child share the name Celest with classmates?
- Celest will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Celest
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Edythe#10917 · Tessie#10917 · Drusilla#10917 · Eugenie#10917 · Ivah#10917 · Karri#10917 · Claribel#10917 · Myrtle#10917
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Celest? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Celest and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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