Zuleima
Feminine · “Arabic "peace”
Zuleima comes out of Moorish Spain by way of Romantic literature. The Arabic root is a real one and the Spanish name is genuinely old, but the reason it exists in quantity is that nineteenth-century Spanish writers used it constantly for their Moorish heroines — a name chosen to sound like Al-Andalus, and then adopted by real families who liked the sound.
How old is the name Zuleima?
Zuleima first appears in US birth records in 1984 — 41 years ago. The typical Zuleima alive today was born around 2000, making them about 25 years old. About 700 people named Zuleima are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Zuleima most popular?
Zuleima peaked in 1994, reaching #2188 nationally. Today it ranks #6838, 4,650 places below that high. See the whole 1994 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From سليمى (Sulaymā) to Zuleima
The story of Zuleima
Arabic names entered Spanish during eight centuries of Muslim rule, and a handful survived the Reconquest as ordinary Spanish names with their origins forgotten. Zulema was one. Nineteenth-century Spanish and Latin American Romantic writing then revived it deliberately as a marker of Moorish setting, and popular fiction and later television carried it into general Latin American use. Zuleima is the fuller spelling, with the extra i marking a glide that Zulema does not show. Its 1994 American peak sits in the Latin American telenovela era rather than in any Arabic-speaking immigration wave.
Meaning
Arabic "peace, safety"
From the Arabic root s-l-m, which gives salām, Islam, Suleiman and Salma. Sulaymā is a feminine formation from it, and Spanish Zulema and Zuleima are its Iberian descendants. The z spelling reflects medieval Spanish handling of the Arabic s, the same shift that turned Arabic al-ṣifr into cifra and zero.
How the name formed
- سليمىSulaymā
- Zulema
- Zuleima
Related forms: Zulema · سليمى (Sulayma) · Zulaima · Zulmira
Pronouncing Zuleima
soo-LAY-mah
In Latin American Spanish the z is an S sound, giving soo-LAY-mah. In Spain it is a th sound. English speakers usually say ZOO-lay-muh with a Z, which is a fourth version. Stress is on the second syllable in all of them.
Nicknames for Zuleima
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
- 1984
- Most girls named
- 199461 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2188reached in 1994
- Change vs 2024
- +77.8%16 in 2025, from 9
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.
Zuleima in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Zulema in Spanish — spelling variant
- سليمى (Sulayma) in Arabic — same name
- Zulaima in Spanish — spelling variant
- Zulmira in Portuguese — related form
Zuleimas among us
people named Zuleima are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 100,454 born in 2025 was named Zuleima
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Zuleima
- #6838
- Zuleima on the 2025 chart
- #922
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Zuleima went to 16 girls in 2025, but Zuleyma is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 38, which makes it the 922nd most-given girls’ name of the year — 5,916 places above the chart.
- Zuleyma22
- Zuleima16
About 1 girl in 42,297 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 100,454 for Zuleima itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Dyanna test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Zuleima's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Dyanna climbed just as high around 1948, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Dyanna's path sketches the road Zuleima is walking now.
Zuleima 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
Zuleima beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Zuleima in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It carries a genuine and well-documented Arabic-Spanish history rather than a decorative one.
- Zuli is a ready-made affectionate form that works in both Spanish and English.
- It is rare in English-speaking contexts while being completely ordinary in Spanish ones.
- The z is said three different ways depending on the listener's language.
- Zulema is the more common spelling and will be assumed.
- Eight letters and four syllables is a lot of name to spell out repeatedly.
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What they receive
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Zuleima
Feminine · #6838 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Zuleimas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Zuleima are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Zuleima?
- Zuleima is one of 2 recorded spellings. Zuleyma is the more common one — 22 births in 2025 against 16 for Zuleima.
- How popular is the name Zuleima in 2025?
- Zuleima ranks #6838 among US girl names in 2025, with 16 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Zuleima?
- About 1 in every 100,454 US girls born in 2025 was named Zuleima — 16 in all.
- Will my child share the name Zuleima with classmates?
- Zuleima will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Zuleima
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Malana#6838 · Jeannie#6838 · Maxie#6838 · Nicol#6838 · Chaney#6838 · Keana#6838 · Concetta#6838 · Pheobe#6838
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Zuleima? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Zuleima and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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