Salema
Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Salema has been given to 38 babies in the U.S. since 1973. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1980, with 7 recorded.
Babies named Salema, 1998
1 in 613,000
Salema over time, 1880–2025
Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Salema?
Salema had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1998, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 1998
- 1 in 613,000
- 6 of 3,677,189 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 294,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 1998
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 424,807 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Salema sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 1998 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 424,807 children born in 1998 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Salema. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Salemas were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Salema was born before 1980 — so the typical Salema is around 45 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1980s
- 44.7% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 86.8%
- A modern name
- Recorded since 1950
- 38
- People you could plausibly meet
1980s — 44.7% of all recorded uses (17).
Is Salema rising or falling?
Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.
- Rank vs 1 year ago
- —
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 5 years ago
- New entry
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not ranked then
- Births vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not published both years
- Share of its own peak
- 0%
- Peak was 1980 (7)
- Years since peak
- 45
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 40.0% average annual change
Spellings of Salema
Salema is not the most common spelling — Alma is, with 32.0% against Salema's <0.01%.
Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.
Salema around the world
Where Salema ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.
- England & Wales1997–1997#3,174in 1997
- France1965–1985#3,464in 1985
Popularity data from Office for National Statistics and Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques. ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0.
Salema by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Salema
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Salema
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.