Salimah
#16,837 in 2025Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Salimah has been given to 281 babies in the U.S. since 1969. In 2025 it ranked #16,837 of 17,293 girls’ names in use. Its peak year was 1998, with 13 recorded.
Babies named Salimah, 2025
1 in 663,000
Salimah 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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.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 Salimah?
Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.
- Among all babies, 2025
- 1 in 663,000
- 5 of 3,315,165 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 321,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 2025
- #16,837
- of 17,293 girls’ names in use
- Coin-flip room size
- 459,581 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Salimah sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 2025 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 459,581 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Salimah. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Salimahs were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Salimah was born before 1996 — so the typical Salimah is around 29 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1990s
- 24.9% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 36.7%
- Spread across generations
- Recorded since 1950
- 281
- People you could plausibly meet
1990s — 24.9% of all recorded uses (70).
Is Salimah 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
- 38.5%
- Peak was 1998 (13)
- Years since peak
- 27
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Shifting
- 22.4% average annual change
Spellings of Salimah
Salimah is not the most common spelling — Aaliyah is, with 35.3% against Salimah's 0.09%.
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.
Salimah around the world
Where Salimah 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 & Wales1997–2016#5,785in 2016
- France1993–2020#7,778in 2020
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.
Salimah by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Salimah
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Salimah
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.