Selma - Meaning of Selma

What does Selma mean?

Pronounce
Selma

[ 2 syll. sel-ma, se-lma ] The baby girl name Selma is pronounced SEHL-Mah in English †. Selma's language of origin is Germanic and Arabic. It is predominantly used in the English, German, Arabic, Slavic, Italian, and Scandinavian languages. The name is of disputed origin; it could have developed as a contraction of Selima under the influence of Thelma. It was first popularized as the name of a romantic castle in the Swedish translations of James MacPherson's 18th century Ossianic poems.

In addition, Selma is a short form of Anselma (Dutch, German, Italian, and Spanish) in the English and German languages.

Selma is also a familiar form of Selima (English and Slavic) in the Arabic and Slavic languages.

Variants of Selma include Sell, Sellma, Sellmah, Selmah, and Zelma (English, Italian, and Romanian).

Variant forms share both the origin and meaning of Selma.

Zelmah (variant spelling in English) is another form of Selma.

See also the related categories, english, slavic, italian, castle, scandinavian, arabic, and german.

Selma is an uncommon baby girl name. At the modest height of its usage in 1901, 0.095% of baby girls were given the name Selma. It was #181 in rank then. The baby name has fallen from favor since then, and is of only infrequent use today. Within all girl names in its family, Selma was nonetheless the most widely used in 2018.

Baby names that sound like Selma include Sellma, Sellmah, Selmah, Silince, Silinse, Solange, Sulema, Sylince, Sylinse, Celense, Saalima, Salana, Salanah, Saleemah, Saleena, Salema, Salenah, Salenna, Salinah, and Salinas.

† Pronunciation for Selma: S as in "see (S.IY)" ; EH as in "ebb (EH.B)" ; L as in "lay (L.EY)" ; M as in "me (M.IY)" ; AH as in "mud (M.AH.D)"