Selby
Feminine · “the willow farm”
Selby is given to both — 293 girls and 688 boys since 1880. See Selby as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Selby is a willow farm in Yorkshire, and it became something considerably grander. Within a few years of the Norman Conquest a monk founded an abbey there — the first Benedictine house established in the north of England after the invasion — and the town grew around it. The abbey church is still standing, which is more than most of them managed.
How old is the name Selby?
Selby first appears in US birth records in 1930 — 95 years ago. The typical Selby alive today was born around 1999, making them about 26 years old. About 300 people named Selby are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Selby most popular?
Selby peaked in 1937, reaching #3800 nationally. See the whole 1937 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From selja bý to Selby
The story of Selby
The abbey was founded within a few years of the Conquest, at a moment when the north of England had just been devastated by a Norman campaign, and it became a considerable landowner. Families who left the town carried its name, and Selby became a surname across Yorkshire and the border counties. Its American life as a first name follows the ordinary route for an English place-surname with an agreeable sound, and it belongs mostly to the early twentieth century here — a period when parents were reaching freely into the surname stock for something that sounded settled.
Meaning
the willow farm
From Old Norse selja, a willow, and bý, a farmstead or village. Willows grow where the ground is wet, and Selby sits on the Ouse, so the name is a plain and accurate description of the place rather than anything ceremonial.
How the name formed
- selja bý
- Selby
Pronouncing Selby
SEL-bee
Two syllables, stress on the first. Nothing in the spelling gives an English reader pause, which is one of the reasons the -by surnames travel so easily as first names.
Nicknames for Selby
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
- 1930
- Most girls named
- 199715 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3800reached in 1937
- Change vs 2022
- −14.3%6 in 2024, from 7
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.
Selbys among us
people named Selby 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
Selby 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
- It names a real place with a documented eleventh-century history and a surviving building.
- Two syllables, five letters, and phonetically transparent on first sight.
- It works for a child of either sex, which surname-names generally do.
- The meaning is a plain physical image — a willow by water — rather than an abstraction.
- It reads as a surname first, and introductions carry a small pause because of it.
- Shelby is far commoner in America and the two will be confused constantly.
- Nearly every child given this spelling is a boy, though the -by ending reads as unisex to most American ears.
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What they receive
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Selby
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Selbys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 300 people named Selby are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Selby in 2025?
- Selby is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Selby with classmates?
- Selby will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More S names
The most-given names starting with S, all years combined.
Susan#1085 · Sarah#90 · Sandra#1207 · Stephanie#557 · Sharon#1250 · Shirley#1581 · Samantha#151 · Sophia#5
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Selby? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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