Salma
Arabic for "safe," built on the same s-l-m root that sits inside shalom, where peace and safety grow from one cluster of sounds. Most Poles have never met one, but after years near the bottom of the list, newborn Salmas are climbing again.
Salma Pronunciation
Salma is pronounced SAHL-mah (/ˈsalma/).
What Salma means
Where Salma comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Salma comes to Poland through Arabic, where it means safe. The Polish gloss keeps two shades of that, bezpieczna and spokojna, safe and calm. Its older root is Hebrew, built on the Semitic consonants s-l-m that also sit inside shalom. Peace and safety grow from one small cluster of sounds.
The name stays close to that meaning. Salma has no Polish diminutives or variants to soften it, so it arrives whole. On a class register it reads short and clear, easy for a teacher to call.
One well-known bearer is the actress Salma Hayek, born in Veracruz, Mexico, to a father of Lebanese descent. That is how an Arabic name reached the Gulf coast. Her fame carried the spelling well beyond the Arab world.
The result is a short name, Arabic in feel and Hebrew in root, meaning bezpieczna and spokojna.
How many people are named Salma
1 in 86707 women in Poland is named Salma. 260 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #1904 among female names.
Salma's popularity over time
6 girls were given the name in 2025, ranking #891 among newborns. It has been climbing since 2005.
Where Salma is most popular
Salma is most popular in Masovian, 205% above the national average (8 girls born 2019–2025), followed by Kuyavian-Pomeranian (+147%) and Łódź (+113%).
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Masovian8 girls born+205%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian2 girls born+147%
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Łódź2 girls born+113%
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Lesser Poland2 girls born+19%
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Silesian2 girls born+19%
Salma as a middle name
Salma is a first name for 260 women in Poland and a middle name for another 42, an 86/14 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 1066th, between Marlene (42) and Sue (42).
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#1064 Leia42
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#1065 Marlene42
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#1066 Salma42
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#1067 Sue42
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#1068 Thea42