Selena

About Selena

Selena is a Latinized form of Greek Selene, meaning “moon.” It is used in Spanish and English, with a different middle vowel in each language: approximately seh-LEH-na in Spanish and suh-LEE-nuh in English. Singers Selena Quintanilla and Selena Gomez give the name especially strong modern cultural associations.

The moon-name family

Selene was a Greek goddess of the moon, and her name is the Greek word for the moon itself. Selena adapts that name with a final a.

Selina is a related English spelling, while Selini is a modern Greek form. These names belong to the same lunar family even though their endings and pronunciations differ.

The full Selena has three syllables, with stress in the middle. Lena could be a suggested shortening, taking the later part of the name, while Sel could provide a shorter opening form. The complete name keeps the flowing sequence of vowels that distinguishes it from the more compact Selene.

Selena Quintanilla’s music

Selena Quintanilla became widely known simply as Selena. Born in Texas in 1971, she became a central figure in Tejano music.

Her album Live won the Grammy for best Mexican-American album in 1994. She was the first female Tejano artist to win that category. Amor Prohibido received a nomination at the following ceremony and supplied several major Spanish-language hits.

After her death in March 1995, the crossover album Dreaming of You reached the top of the Billboard 200. A 1997 film starring Jennifer Lopez brought her life and music to another audience.

Her professional use made Selena recognizable as a single-name identity. The connection includes live performance, Spanish-language recordings, and the English-language material through which her audience continued to grow.

Selena Gomez on screen and record

Selena Gomez offers a later bearer with work in both music and television. In Only Murders in the Building, she plays Mabel Mora.

The role brought her a 2024 Emmy nomination for outstanding lead actress in a comedy series. She has also received comedy-series nominations as an executive producer, giving her more than one role in the program’s creation.

Her recording Revelación received a nomination for best Latin pop album at the 2022 Grammy Awards. That recognition adds a Spanish-language recording connection alongside her television work.

Quintanilla and Gomez belong to different generations, but both have made Selena familiar across more than one medium. Their careers are distinct parts of the name’s modern cultural history.

American popularity

Selena’s strongest American year for girls was 1995, when 3,825 received the name and it ranked #91. It was given to 1,645 girls in 2000 and 984 in 2010.

In 2025 it ranked #268, with 1,170 girls. Its American profile has remained substantial after its especially prominent mid-1990s year, alongside the much older Greek moon-name tradition.

How popular is Selena?

In 2025, Selena ranked #268 among girls in the United States, with 1,170 recorded uses. The U.S. birth records first list this spelling for girls in 1880; its largest annual count was 3,825 in 1995. Rankings count each spelling separately. They describe national use, so local familiarity can differ. The popularity chart shows whether the name has remained common, returned after a quieter period, or risen recently.