Selma
A Germanic name meaning "divine protection". In Poland it stays rare: barely more than a hundred women carry it, and most Poles have never met one.
Selma Pronunciation
Selma is pronounced SEL-mah (/ˈsɛlma/).
What Selma means
Where Selma comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Selma reaches Polish parents by two roads. In the north it is Germanic, a short form of Anselma, built from ans, meaning god, and helm, meaning helmet or guard. Together they give the sense recorded for the name today: divine protection, or in Polish strzeżona przez bogów.
The name grew famous in Sweden through Selma Lagerlöf. She won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1909, the first woman to do so, and her fame made Selma an everyday name across Scandinavia.
There is a second Selma, and it came from elsewhere. In Turkish the name is common and traces to an Arabic root tied to peace and safety. The two Selmas look identical on the page and settle on similar guarded meanings, though they grew from separate soil.
On a Polish class register, Selma sits short and clear beside longer names. It has no diminutive of its own. What the name keeps is the idea folded into Anselma: protection granted from above.
How many people are named Selma
1 in 181805 women in Poland is named Selma. 124 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #3018 among female names.
Selma's popularity over time
Fewer than 2 girls were given the name in 2025. It has been stable for a decade.
Selma as a middle name
Selma is a first name for 124 women in Poland and a middle name for another 37, a 77/23 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 1146th, between Paige (37) and Sheila (37).
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#1144 Noor37
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#1145 Paige37
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#1146 Selma37
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#1147 Sheila37
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#1148 Sultan37