Selene
Feminine · “Moon”
Selene is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 9,713 girls against 5 boys since 1880.
Selene is the Greek word for the moon, and the name of the moon goddess who drove her chariot across the night sky in the oldest Greek poetry. It has been read aloud in classrooms studying myth for centuries, which means most people meet the spelling before they meet a person wearing it. In English it lands in two soft syllables that end on a long, open vowel.
How old is the name Selene?
Selene first appears in US birth records in 1919 — 106 years ago. The typical Selene alive today was born around 2010, making them about 15 years old. About 9,500 people named Selene are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Selene most popular?
Selene peaked in 2025, reaching #621 nationally. Today it ranks #621, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Selene appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From Σελήνη (Selēnē) to Selene
The story of Selene
Selene comes straight from Greek σελήνη, the everyday word for the moon, which also served as the name of the Titan goddess of the moon — sister of Helios the sun and Eos the dawn in Hesiod's account of the older gods. Latin writers borrowed the name unchanged, and it traveled with classical learning into the modern languages of Europe, where the related forms Selena and Selina took hold alongside it. In the United States it has appeared in the records without a real break for over a century, and it is at home in Spanish and Italian as well as English — which sits well with its strength in California, Texas and Florida.
Meaning
Moon
Greek selēnē is simply the ordinary word for the moon; it is connected to selas, 'light, brightness'.
How the name formed
- ΣελήνηSelēnē
- Selene
- Selena
- Selina
Related forms: Σελήνη · Selene · Selene · Selene · Selena · Selina
Pronouncing Selene
suh-LEEN
Two pronunciations are both in real use: the anglicized two-syllable suh-LEEN, and the classical three-syllable seh-LEE-nee, closer to the Greek. Spanish speakers generally say seh-LEH-neh. Expect to state your preference more than once.
Nicknames for Selene
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
- 1919
- Most girls named
- 2025469 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #621reached in 2025
- Change vs 2023
- +17.0%469 in 2025, from 401
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.
Selene in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Σελήνη in Greek — transliteration
- Selene in Spanish — same name
- Selene in Italian — same name
- Selene in Portuguese — same name
- Selena in English/Spanish — related form
- Selina in English/German — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Selenes among us
people named Selene are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 3,427 born in 2025 was named Selene
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 Hana test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Selene's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Hana climbed just as high around 2002, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Hana's path sketches the road Selene is walking now.
Selene 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 Selene is headed
Selene should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High 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.
Selene beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Selene in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is settled and easy to explain in one word — moon — which is rarer than parents expect.
- Spelled the same in English, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, so it crosses borders without adjustment.
- An unbroken presence in American records for more than a century, so it is familiar without being common.
- Lena is a ready-made short form with its own long history, for anyone who wants a smaller everyday name.
- The two-syllable and three-syllable pronunciations both have real currency, so she will spend some of her life correcting people — or, more likely, answering to both.
- Selena, Selina and Céline are close enough that mail and roll calls will sometimes land on the wrong one. Céline is actually a separate name from a Latin root, but few people know that.
- It is climbing rather than fading, so it may be noticeably more familiar by the time she reaches school than it is now — still far from crowded, but less of a solo act than the record suggests.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Selene to the vote.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Selene
Feminine · #621 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Selenes are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 9,500 people named Selene are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Selene in 2025?
- Selene ranks #621 among US girl names in 2025, with 469 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Selene?
- About 1 in every 3,427 US girls born in 2025 was named Selene — 469 in all.
- Will my child share the name Selene with classmates?
- Selene will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Selene
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Keira#621 · Goldie#621 · Amiyah#620 · Anne#619 · Sariyah#624 · Noah#624 · Campbell#617 · Marie#617
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Selene? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Selene and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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