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Cecylia

Given to more newborn girls last year than in years past, it's mid comeback after a quieter stretch. The name carries the old sense "blind", and today it rings familiar without turning up everywhere.

Cecylia Pronunciation

Cecylia is pronounced tse-TSIHL-yah (/t͡sɛˈt͡sɨlja/).

Alive in 2025
25,332
Newborns 2025
59
National rank
#253

What Cecylia means

Where Cecylia comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.

Cecylia reaches back to a Latin family name, Caecilius, and to the Latin word caecus, meaning blind. The Polish forms keep that root close, and the meaning given for the name is simply ślepa, niewidoma, blind. That sense sits oddly beside the name's most famous bearer, since Saint Cecilia became the patron of music, and her feast falls on 22 November, the day Poles named Cecylia mark their imieniny.

In everyday speech the name softens. Cecilia stands as the older variant, closer to the Latin. Among family and friends a Cecylia becomes Cesia, or shorter still, Cela.

Look for her in a school register and the full Cecylia will be written in the margin, while everyone in the room says Cela. The name has held the sense of blindness for a long time, yet in Polish ears it rings first with music, with the saint at her organ. Blind in root, ślepa and niewidoma, it still answers to Cesia.

When Cecylia celebrates name day

Cecylia appears 2 times in the Polish name day calendar, 1 of them as a main name, the first on 22 November.

Name days

The days Polish calendars list this name on. By custom you celebrate one of them, usually the first after your birthday.

Also celebrates

Rarer dates. Only the most complete calendars add this name on these days. Most skip them, so hardly anyone celebrates then.

How many people are named Cecylia

1 in 890 women in Poland is named Cecylia. 25,332 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #253 among female names.

People with the name Cecylia 2019 → 2025
25,332 -6,884 since 2019
2020 31,581 -635
2021 30,144 -1,437
2022 28,724 -1,420
2023 27,481 -1,243
2024 26,431 -1,050
2025 25,332 -1,099

Cecylia's popularity over time

59 girls were given the name in 2025, ranking #321 among newborns. It has been climbing since 2000. Still the #253 name among living women, even as it slips to #321 among newborns.

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59 newborns with the name Cecylia in 2025
national rank #321 that year

Where Cecylia is most popular

Cecylia is most popular in Greater Poland, 63% above the national average (45 girls born 2019–2025), followed by Masovian (+60%) and Kuyavian-Pomeranian (+42%). It is least common in Subcarpathian and Podlaskie, 87% and 76% below average respectively.

More common than average Less common than average

Cecylia as a middle name

Cecylia is a first name for 25,332 women in Poland and a middle name for another 25,726, a 50/50 split, almost evenly. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 74th, between Sabina (25,797) and Daria (24,957).

As a first name
25,332
As a middle name
25,726
first name 50% middle name 50%

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