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Silja

Girls' name

Blind, through Caecilia

Silja has been given to 11 babies in the U.S. since 2004. 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 2014, with 6 recorded.

Babies named Silja, 2014

1 in 618,000

Silja over time, 1880–2025

Girls
024618801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Silja: meaning, origin, and history

Blind, through Caecilia

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Silja means

Silja belongs to the name family reached through Silja → Caecilia. Its meaning is “blind”.

Origin, language, and formation

Silja is used in Estonian, Faroese, Finnish and Icelandic.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Cecilia and Caecilia.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Finnish, Silja is pronounced /ˈsiljɑ/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 11 girls were recorded with the name Silja between 2004 and 2014. Its highest annual count was 6 in 2014; its best national rank was #16,238 in 2014.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Silja?

Silja had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2014, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2014
1 in 618,000
6 of 3,706,812 births
Among girls only
1 in 298,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2014
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
428,229 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Silja sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2014 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 428,229 children born in 2014 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Silja. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Siljas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Silja was born before 2014 — so the typical Silja is around 11 today.

Median birth year
2014
About 11 years old
Biggest decade
2010s
54.5% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
100.0%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
11
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

2010s — 54.5% of all recorded uses (6).

Is Silja 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 2014 (6)
Years since peak
11
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Not enough data
Too few years
Best rank ever
#16,238
2014

Spellings of Silja

Silja is not the most common spelling — Wilma is, with 21.1% against Silja'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.

Silja around the world

Where Silja 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.

  • France
    2010–2010
    #5,882
    in 2010
  • Norway
    1880–2025
    #491
    in 2025

Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques and Statistics Norway. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. SSB data under CC BY 4.0.

Silja by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#16,238
2014
Peak year
2014
6 that year
First recorded
2004
Last recorded
2014
All-time count
11
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Silja

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

SiloeSilyaSiliaSilahSilkaSilviSilpaSillaSilkenSilvyaSilinaSilkSiloamSilkeSilasSilenceSilayahSiljeSilbiaSillerSilvieSilvianaLiljaHilja

Sibling names for Silja

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Silja

Top names of 2014, Silja's peak yearThe 2010s in fullOther names that peaked in 2014Girls' names starting with S