Selene
- Pronunciation
- [Se-lene]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Goddess Of The Moon
- Origin
- English
About the Name Selene
Selene is a Greek mythological name belonging to the goddess of the moon, who was imagined driving her silver chariot across the night sky. The word selene is simply the Greek for "moon," making the name a direct and luminous celestial reference — one that has enjoyed renewed romance amid the modern love of moon, star, and sky names. Few names wear their meaning so beautifully on the surface, glowing with the same soft light as the goddess it honors.
That celestial allure has powered a strong, sustained climb. Selene first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 2006 and rose steadily to its peak in 2024 at #675, its highest rank yet — a clear sign of a name still gathering admirers rather than fading, having moved from #691 in 2022 to #708 in 2023 before reaching that new high. Its upward path reflects the broad contemporary appetite for lunar and mythological girl names.
Pronounced Se-lene, the name offers two graceful, glowing syllables and the sweet nickname Lena, Lenny, or Sel. Its recorded variant is Celine, the French form with the same soft, moonlit sound, while Selene itself leans further into its mythological, lunar heritage. For parents drawn to celestial names with genuine classical roots and a luminous, romantic feel, Selene offers all the poetry of the night sky in a single, elegant word.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Selene
US Popularity History (2006–2025)
Annual US births named Selene by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2025 with 469 girls named Selene (girl rank #623 that year).
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.
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Where in the US Is Selene 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 Selene the strongest states are Nevada, New Mexico, California.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nevada | #378 | 24 |
| 2 | New Mexico | #394 | 15 |
| 3 | California | #510 | 674 |
| 4 | Massachusetts | #614 | 54 |
| 5 | Florida | #631 | 238 |
| 6 | Oregon | #632 | 18 |
| 7 | Maryland | #671 | 24 |
| 8 | Texas | #681 | 434 |
| 9 | Oklahoma | #694 | 25 |
| 10 | New York | #701 | 157 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Colorado | #868 | 18 |
| 2 | Minnesota | #850 | 30 |
| 3 | Illinois | #792 | 81 |
| 4 | Wisconsin | #788 | 33 |
| 5 | Michigan | #786 | 64 |
| 6 | New Jersey | #784 | 61 |
| 7 | Washington | #746 | 67 |
| 8 | Pennsylvania | #744 | 55 |
| 9 | Virginia | #717 | 70 |
| 10 | Arizona | #705 | 79 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Selene 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 |
Looking for names like Selene?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Selene to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Selene against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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