Selmer
Boys' nameMeaning not yet documented
Selmer has been given to 769 babies in the U.S. since 1887. 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 1916, with 43 recorded.
Babies named Selmer, 1950
1 in 700,000
Selmer 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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.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 Selmer?
Selmer had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1950, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 1950
- 1 in 700,000
- 5 of 3,502,380 births
- Among boys only
- 1 in 358,000
- <0.01% of boys
- Rank, 1950
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 485,534 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Selmer sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 1950 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 485,534 children born in 1950 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Selmer. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Selmers were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Selmer was born before 1920 — so the typical Selmer is around 105 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1910s
- 33.9% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 29.4%
- Spread across generations
- Recorded since 1950
- 5
- People you could plausibly meet
1910s — 33.9% of all recorded uses (257).
Is Selmer 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 1916 (43)
- Years since peak
- 109
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 34.5% average annual change
Spellings of Selmer
Selmer is not the most common spelling — Elmer is, with 68.4% against Selmer's 0.40%.
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.
Where Selmer is used
Across 1910–2025, Selmer was most concentrated in North Dakota — about 1 in 6,250 boys, against 1 in 41,968 across all states with data. It was least common in Iowa (1 in —).
Most concentrated
- 1North Dakota1 in 6,250
- 2Minnesota1 in 33,333
- 3South Dakota1 in 50,000
- 4Wisconsin1 in 100,000
- 5Iowa1 in —
Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Selmer has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Selmer around the world
Where Selmer 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.
- Norway1880–2025#165in 2025
Popularity data from Statistics Norway. SSB data under CC BY 4.0.
Selmer by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
As a boy's name
Names similar to Selmer
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Selmer
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.