How popular is the baby name Sela in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Sela.
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…[S]he was both surprised and delighted when quickly babies were named after her.
“I said ‘oh wow’ because with some of them I didn’t even know that they had named the baby after me! When you go to the market everybody is called Alice of Alex or Ellis. The last time I counted it was 862 Alices but now it has increased to 1,000 plus!
“To me the name Alice is an action name. Alice people are active people, they are caring people, they are loving people. A, the first letter in the alphabet. A for action.”
From an article about names in Israel by Abigail Klein Leichman:
I figured [Forest Rain’s] parents must have been hippies or Native Americans. In mainstream American culture, it is unusual to name children after elements of nature. How many people do you know named Rainbow, Lightning, Juniper Bush, Boulder, Valley, Oak, Prairie, Wellspring, or Wave?
In Israel, such names are extremely commonplace. If Forest Rain translated her name to Ya’ara Tal, no Israeli would think it exotic in the least. The words mentioned above translate to the everyday Hebrew names Keshet, Barak, Rotem, Sela, Guy, Alon, Bar, Ma’ayan, and Gal.
Another difference is that many modern Israeli names are unisex. You often cannot tell by name alone if someone is male or female. Tal, Gal, Sharon, Noam (pleasant), Shachar (Dawn), Inbar (amber), Inbal (bell), Neta (sapling), Ori (my light), Hadar (splendor), Amit (friend), and myriad other common names are used for either gender.
The CSO recently unveiled its Baby Names of Ireland visualisation tool recently published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) tool allowing users to check the popularity of names officially registered in Ireland. However, it does not allow for names with the síneadh fada or other diacritical marks that denote pronunciation or meaning.
[…]
“Our language, while having a special status afforded it in the Constitution has been progressively marginalised to the fringes of bureaucracy.
“It behoves the Central Statistics Office above all other institutions to be correct in all matters it reports. This is where historians will first go to research,” [author Rossa Ó Snodaigh] said.
For more quotes about names, check out the name quotes category.
On August 21, the United States will see its first coast-to-coast solar eclipse since 1918. If you’re planning to have (or conceive!) a baby around the time of the eclipse, you might be interested in a name that marks the event (but that perhaps isn’t as obvious as Eclipse itself).
So what are your options?
Names with “celestial” associations
A solar eclipse involves the alignment of three celestial bodies — the sun (a star), the moon, and the Earth — in the sky. You could use a name that is associated in some way with one of these elements, such as…
“Sun” names
Haru (Japanese)
Helios (ancient Greek)
Hina (Japanese)
Inti (Quechua)
Nou (Hmong)
Ra (ancient Egyptian)
Ravi (Sanskrit)
Shams (Arabic)
Sol (Spanish & Portuguese, ultimately from Latin)
Solaris (Latin)
Soleil (French)
Sunniva (Old English)
Sunny (English)
Surya (Sanskrit)
“Star” names
Aster (ancient Greek)
Astra (based on the ancient Greek word)
Citlalli (Nahuatl)
Estelle (French)
Estrella (Spanish)
Hoshi (Japanese)
Najm & Najma (Arabic)
Seren (Welsh)
Star (English)
Starla (based on the English word)
Stjarna (Icelandic)
Stella (Latin)
Tähti (Finnish)
Tara (Sanskrit)
“Moon” names
Aylin (Turkish)
Badr (Arabic)
Chandra (Sanskrit)
Dal (Korean)
Dawa (Tibetan)
Ilargi (Basque)
Luna (Latin)
Lusine (Armenian)
Mahina (Hawaiian & Tongan)
Máni (Icelandic)
Metztli (Nahuatl)
Moon (English)
Qamar (Arabic)
Selene (ancient Greek)
“Earth” names
Avani (Sanskrit)
Bhumi (Sanskrit)
Eartha (based on the English word)
Gaia (ancient Greek)
Ki (Sumerian)
Tierra (Spanish)
Tlalli (Nahuatl)
“Sky” names
Akash (Sanskrit)
Alya (Arabic)
Anu (Sumerian)
Caelus (Latin)
Céleste (French)
Ciel (French)
Cielo (Spanish)
Lani (Hawaiian)
Ortzi (Basque)
Sky (English)
Skyla (based on the English word)
Sora (Japanese)
You could even look for a name that contains more than one of these elements. I’ve come across a handful of names that happen to contain both an element meaning “sun” and an element meaning “moon,” for instance. Examples include Ravichandra (Sanskrit), Künnei (Yakut), Aygün (Turkish), and Günay (also Turkish).
Names with “dark” associations
The main event, from an Earthling’s perspective, is the darkening of the sun thanks to the moon getting in the way and casting its shadow over us. So you could use a name associated in some way with darkness, such as…
“Shadow” names
Chhaya (Sanskrit)
Shade (English)
Shadow (English)
Umbra (Latin)
Zalaph (Hebrew)
Zillah (Hebrew)
“Dark” or “Black” names
Adham (Arabic)
Blake (English surname)
Charna (Yiddish)
Ciar & Ciara (Irish)
Ciarán (Irish)
Dubhán (Irish)
Duff (Irish surname)
Jett (English)
Kara (Turkish)
Krishna (Sanskrit)
Melaina (ancient Greek)
Melania (Latin, based on melaina)
Mélanie (French form of Melania)
Raven (English)
Sullivan (Irish surname)
“Night” names
Layla (Arabic)
Nisha (Sanskrit)
Njóla (Icelandic)
Noctis (Latin)
Nox (Latin)
Nyx (ancient Greek)
Rajani (Sanskrit)
Rajnish (Sanskrit)
Tuta (Quechua)
Yoalli (Nahuatl)
I think Blake and Sullivan are particularly intriguing choices.
The English surname Blake can come from either of two similar Middle English words that happen to have opposite definitions: blac, meaning “black,” or blac, meaning “wan, pale, white, fair.” So it manages to encapsulate the concepts of both darkness and lightness — two key elements of an eclipse.
And the Irish surname Sullivan, “descendant of Súileabhán,” is based on the Gaelic personal name Súileabhán, meaning “little dark eye” — which sounds a lot like a poetic description of an eclipse.
Name pairings with both “celestial” and “dark” associations
You could combine some of the “celestial” and “dark” names above to get something more specific, like…
Layla Soleil: “night” and “sun”
Jett Helios: “black” and “sun”
Ciarán Sol: “black” and “sun”
Mélanie Stella: “dark” and “star” (“Dark Star” is also a Grateful Dead song)
Luna Zillah: “moon” and “shadow” (“Moon Shadow” is also a Cat Stevens song)
Names (or name pairings) featuring the letters “S” and “E”
This is as inconspicuous as it gets. Commemorate the solar eclipse simply by using the letters “S” and “E” in combination. You could choose a single name that starts with “Se-,” like…
Sela Selene (“moon” in Greek) Selma Seraphina Seren (“star” in Welsh) Serenity
Sean Sebastian Sefton Sergio Seth Severino
Or, you could use a pair of names that start with “S-” and “E-,” such as…
Sabrina Eden Sydney Elise Sarah Evangeline Susanna Elizabeth
Simon Elijah Spencer Ellis Shane Everett Samuel Edward
Which of the above names (or combos) do you like most? What other solar eclipse-themed ideas would you add to this list?
P.S. Did you know that Cleopatra gave her twins the middle names Selene and Helios?
Update, 5/15/2018: The baby name Eclipse debuted in the 2017 SSA data! The baby name Moon also more than tripled in usage last year.
Update, 12/31/2022: The rare Icelandic name Myrkvi can mean “eclipse” (also “darkness”).
Update, 2/28/2023: Actress Soleil Moon Frye‘s given names mean “sun” and (of course) “moon.”
Sources:
Hanks, Patrick. (Ed.) Dictionary of American Family Names. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Looking for a set of baby names with something in common? If so, here are some 4-letter anagram names for you to check out!
Anagrams are words that contain the same set of letters, but not in the same sequence. For instance, the words “race,” “care,” and “acre” are all anagrams of one another.
Anagram names can be a neat option for siblings — particularly multiples (like twins and triplets). They’re also a clever way to connect a baby name to the name of an older relative (e.g., grandpa Gary, grandson Gray).
Below are hundreds of four-letter names (collected from the SSA’s huge database of U.S. baby names) that happen to be anagrams of other names.
Four-letter anagram names
Adir, Adri, Ardi, Dair, Dari, Diar, Dira, Dria, Riad, Rida
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