Celeste
Feminine · Latin roots · “Heavenly”
Celeste is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 65,621 girls against 57 boys since 1880.
Celeste is the Latin word for heavenly, worn as a name for something like fifteen centuries. It travels almost unchanged through French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, and in Italian and Spanish it is still an ordinary word for sky-blue. Three syllables, with the weight on the second, ending in that soft hiss.
How old is the name Celeste?
Celeste first appears in US birth records in 1881 — 144 years ago. The typical Celeste alive today was born around 1993, making them about 32 years old. About 58,000 people named Celeste are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Celeste most popular?
Celeste peaked in 2025, reaching #188 nationally. Today it ranks #188, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Where it comes from
From caelum (Latin, 'sky') to Celeste
The story of Celeste
The Latin adjective caelestis was taken up as a personal name by early Christians, for whom 'heavenly' was a plain statement of hope rather than a flourish. Its derivative Caelestinus was borne by five popes, beginning with Celestine I in the fifth century and including Celestine V, who resigned the papacy in 1294. From medieval Latin the name settled into the Romance languages as Céleste, Celeste and Celestina, and reached English-speaking countries largely through French and Italian families. The same Latin root gave the celesta, the bell-toned keyboard instrument patented in Paris in the 1880s and named céleste for its sound.
Meaning
Heavenly, of the sky
From Latin caelestis, an adjective built on caelum, 'sky, heaven'.
Cultural footprint
Celeste Ng (b. 1980) — Wrote Little Fires Everywhere
Celeste Holm (b. 1917) — Oscar winner of Hollywood's golden age
Source: Wikidata — the one source on this page that is not an official agency.
How the name formed
- caelumLatin, 'sky'
- caelestis
- Caelestinus / Caelestis
- Céleste
- Celeste
Related forms: Céleste · Celeste · Celeste · Celeste · Célestine · Celestina
Pronouncing Celeste
suh-LEST
Two syllables in English, stress on the second. Some families say seh-LEST. The French Céleste is closer to say-LEST, and the Italian and Spanish Celeste keeps three syllables: cheh-LES-teh or seh-LES-teh.
Nicknames for Celeste
High
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
- 1881
- Most girls named
- 20251,662 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #188reached in 2025
- Change vs 2022
- +53.5%1,662 in 2025, from 1,083
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.
Celeste in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Céleste in French — same name
- Celeste in Italian — same name
- Celeste in Spanish — same name
- Celeste in Portuguese — same name
- Célestine in French — related form
- Celestina in Spanish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Celestes among us
people named Celeste are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 967 born in 2025 was named Celeste
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Lana test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Celeste's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Lana climbed just as high around 1948, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Lana's path sketches the road Celeste is walking now.
Celeste is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Celeste is headed
Celeste looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 29% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Celeste beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Celeste in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled the same way in English, French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, so it survives a move or a bilingual family without adjustment.
- A documented record stretching from late Latin through five popes named Celestine to the present, with no gap in use.
- Its meaning is transparent to anyone who knows a Romance language — celeste is still an everyday word for sky-blue in Spanish and Italian.
- Has real short forms already in circulation, chiefly CeCe, rather than requiring parents to invent one.
- The opening sound is /s/ but the letter is C, so expect Salest, Selest and Saleste on forms and name tags. Most people correct after hearing it once, but the spelling has to be given aloud.
- In Italy, Celeste is given to boys as well as girls. That rarely surfaces in American life, but it is worth knowing if the family has Italian ties.
- It is currently climbing, so a child named Celeste now may meet more of them by high school than the present picture suggests — though it remains far from a name in every classroom.
- The final -st cluster gets clipped in fast speech, and the name does not shorten obviously; families who want a nickname usually settle on CeCe rather than arriving at one naturally.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Celeste
Feminine · Latin roots · #188 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Celestes are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 58,000 people named Celeste are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Celeste in 2025?
- Celeste ranks #188 among US girl names in 2025, with 1,662 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Celeste?
- About 1 in every 967 US girls born in 2025 was named Celeste — 1,662 in all.
- Will my child share the name Celeste with classmates?
- Celeste will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Celeste
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Tatum#189 · Katherine#186 · Haven#190 · Lila#186 · Blakely#191 · Kaylani#185 · Reese#192 · Adalynn#184
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Celeste? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Celeste and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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