Icilma was an English cosmetics company. Icilma products (creams, soaps, powders, etc.) were on the market from the late 1890s until the mid-1960s.
The founder of Icilma was an Englishman named Stephen Armitage who had “acquired permission from the government to exploit a natural mineral water spring [in] Algeria, which had been discovered in the 1890s by oil prospectors.” He apparently coined the word “Icilma” by combining two Arabic words meaning “flows” and “water.”
So why are we talking about a long-gone bath-and-beauty brand on a baby name blog?
Because I’ve found dozens of females with “Icilma” as either a first or middle name. They earliest examples I’ve seen were born in the early 1900s. The most recent one I spotted was born in England in 2006.
Interestingly, the first Icilmas were born not just in England, but in various parts of the British empire. I found a particularly high number of Icilmas in Jamaica, for instance. Here’s a record for Icilma Marjorie Veronica O’Connor, who was born in Saint Andrew, Jamaica, in August of 1925:
I also found a few living in the United States, but it looks like most/all of them were born elsewhere.
Do you like Icilma as a baby name?