Selena: Meaning of Baby Name Selena

About the Name Selena

Selena is the Spanish/Italian form of the Greek Selēnē — the Greek goddess of the moon, equivalent to the Roman Diana. The Greek selas meaning "light" or "brightness" is the underlying root, and the Greek goddess Selene was depicted driving her chariot of white horses across the night sky. The name has been used in Greek and Italian naming traditions for centuries but achieved global recognition through one specific cultural figure.

The single most influential modern bearer is American singer Selena Quintanilla-Pérez (1971–1995), the Tejano music star known as "the Queen of Tejano music" whose murder at age 23 by her fan club president became one of the most-mourned cultural deaths in 20th-century Latin American memory. The 1997 film Selena (Jennifer Lopez in the title role) and her continuing musical legacy made the name globally recognized in Spanish-speaking American naming.

The Selena cultural impact on American naming was substantial: SSA records show fewer than 100 baby Selenas annually before 1995; by 1996 (the year after her death) the name had crossed 5,000 annually and reached the US top 100 girls' rank. The contemporary American Selena surge has continued, partly through Selena Quintanilla's enduring legacy and partly through the related American actress and singer Selena Gomez (born 1992, named after the Tejano singer). Selena has held a US top-200 girls' rank since 1995. The name's appeal is its layered Greek-mythological-Latin-American pedigree combined with three flowing syllables. The name reads as both classical-mythological and contemporary in Spanish-American naming. Common nicknames Lena (now itself a popular standalone name), Selly, and the rare Sel each carry distinct registers; international forms include Selene (alternate English/Italian/Greek, the original goddess form), Sélène (French), and the original Greek Selēnē.

Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.

Quick Facts About Selena

957

Spanish baby names in our dictionary

559

Spanish female names

322

6-letter S-names in our dictionary

481

S-female names total

1995–2025

years of US SSA records (27 total)

34,998

total US births named Selena (all years)

US Popularity History (1995–2025)

↘️ Falling: Selena dropped 26 places in the US girls ranking over the last 5 years (#242 in 2020 → #268 in 2025).

Annual US births named Selena by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1995 with 3,825 girls named Selena (girl rank #91 that year).

Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #268 for girls (1,170 US births). That's 177 places below its 1995 peak.

Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.

Where in the US Is Selena Most Popular?

Average girl-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Selena the strongest states are New Mexico, Nevada, Hawaii.

Strongest girls-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	New Mexico	#113	131
2	Nevada	#122	199
3	Hawaii	#132	23
4	California	#137	2,239
5	Alaska	#159	18
6	Arizona	#169	367
7	Rhode Island	#185	30
8	Delaware	#197	34
9	North Dakota	#211	18
10	Texas	#212	1,383

Weakest girls-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	Alabama	#552	91
2	Louisiana	#522	94
3	Tennessee	#496	144
4	Utah	#482	91
5	Mississippi	#472	49
6	Kentucky	#456	101
7	South Carolina	#440	106
8	Arkansas	#410	69
9	Iowa	#397	76
10	Indiana	#395	170

Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Selena in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.

Variant Forms

Name	Meaning	Gender	Origin
Celine	Variant Of Celia Or Selena. One Of Seven Mythological Daughters Of Atlas Transformed By Zeus Into Stars Of The Pleiades Constellation.	Female	French
Selene	Goddess Of The Moon	Female	English

Looking for names like Selena?

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Compare Selena to Other Popular Names

Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Selena against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).

Selena vs Olivia 210,124 births since 2014

Selena vs Emma 202,477 births since 2014

Selena vs Sophia 169,709 births since 2014

Selena vs Isabella 158,431 births since 2014

Selena vs Ava 157,356 births since 2014

Selena vs Charlotte 151,872 births since 2014

Selena vs Mia 149,779 births since 2014

Selena vs Amelia 142,728 births since 2014

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