Salem
Feminine · “peace”
Salem is given to both — 6,491 girls and 4,687 boys since 1880. See Salem as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Salem is one of the oldest place names in the Hebrew Bible — the city of Melchizedek in Genesis, later read as an early name for Jerusalem — and Puritan settlers carried it to Massachusetts in the seventeenth century for exactly that reason. It shares a root with shalom and with Arabic salaam, so the word for peace sits inside it in two languages at once. Two syllables, both easy: SAY-lum.
How old is the name Salem?
Salem first appears in US birth records in 1976 — 49 years ago. The typical Salem is a kid of about 4 — this name's wave is very recent. About 6,500 people named Salem are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Salem most popular?
Salem peaked in 2023, reaching #417 nationally. Today it ranks #435, 18 places below that high. See the whole 2023 chart.
Where it comes from
From Shalem to Salem
The story of Salem
Salem begins as a place: the city whose king Melchizedek meets Abraham in Genesis, a name Greek and Latin translators of the Hebrew Bible passed on unchanged. English readers of scripture knew it for centuries before Puritan colonists in Massachusetts chose it for a settlement in the 1620s, and later Americans repeated it across the map — Salem in Oregon, Winston-Salem in North Carolina, New Salem in Illinois. Alongside that road runs an Arabic one: Sālim and Salīm, from the same root, have been men's names for well over a thousand years, and Salem is a common English spelling of them. So a child called Salem today may be named for the word, the city, the Bible, or all three.
Meaning
peace, whole, safe
From the Semitic root s-l-m, which gives Hebrew shalem 'complete, whole' and shalom 'peace', and Arabic salām 'peace' with sālim 'safe, sound'. The biblical Salem of Genesis 14 was understood by later Jewish and Christian writers as Jerusalem.
How the name formed
- Shalem
- Salēm
- Salem
Related forms: Sālim / سالم · Salīm / سليم · Selim · Shalem / שָׁלֵם · Salim · Salima
Pronouncing Salem
SAY-lum
Stress on the first syllable, matching the American cities. The Arabic name spelled the same way is said sah-LEEM, with the stress on the second syllable — worth deciding which you mean if your family uses both.
Nicknames for Salem
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
- 1976
- Most girls named
- 2023734 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #417reached in 2023
- Change vs 2024
- −1.0%711 in 2025, from 718
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.
Salem in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Sālim / سالم in Arabic — related form
- Salīm / سليم in Arabic — related form
- Selim in Turkish — related form
- Shalem / שָׁלֵם in Hebrew — same name
- Salim in Persian — transliteration
- Salima in Arabic (feminine) — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: North Carolina, Texas, California.
Salems among us
people named Salem are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 2,261 born in 2025 was named Salem
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 Ally test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Salem's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Ally climbed just as high around 1998, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Ally's path sketches the road Salem is walking now.
Salem 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 Salem is headed
Salem 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.
Salem beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Salem in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled the way Americans already read it, thanks to Salem, Oregon and Winston-Salem — little correcting, little repeating.
- Two syllables, one stress, no silent letters; it survives being shouted across a playground.
- Used for boys and girls in US records, so the spelling carries either child without adjustment.
- A documented history reaching back to the Hebrew Bible and, through Arabic Sālim, across a second language and a second continent.
- The Salem witch trials of 1692 are the first thing many Americans think of, and the talking cat in Sabrina the Teenage Witch is the second. Both associations are Halloween-tinted rather than dark, but they are there for life.
- It leans toward girls in US records without settling there, and boys named Salem are the smaller group. Either child may meet an assumption about which one they are before anyone sees them.
- The name has been climbing steadily and recently. A Salem starting school now will likely be the only one, but that is less certain by the time they finish it.
- Older Americans may remember Salem as a cigarette brand — a fading connection, but not yet gone.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Salem
Feminine · #435 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Salems are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 6,500 people named Salem are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Salem in 2025?
- Salem ranks #435 among US girl names in 2025, with 711 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Salem?
- About 1 in every 2,261 US girls born in 2025 was named Salem — 711 in all.
- Will my child share the name Salem with classmates?
- Salem will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Salem
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lyra#435 · Vienna#434 · Maia#433 · Hayden#437 · Macie#438 · Maddison#438 · Dream#432 · London#431
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Salem? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Salem and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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