Meaning not yet researched.
Salma: US girls given the name each year, 1880 to 2025, from Social Security card applications. 278 in 2025. Its best rank was #569 in 1999.
US births per year · SSA card applications
Peaked at #569 in 1999; #937 in 2025. Every baby recorded as Salma in 2025 was a girl.
Baby name · US data 1880–2025
#937 for US girls in 2025. Its best year was 1999, at #569.
Hover, tap or use the arrow keys for any year. Years with fewer than five babies of a sex are not published by SSA and show as zero.
Salma: US girls given the name each year from 1880 to 2025. 278 girls in 2025. Peak: #569 in 1999 · most girls in one year: 442 (1999).
In 2025, 278 US girls were named Salma, making it the 937th most common girls’ name of the year, down 65 places from #872 in 2024. That is 32 fewer than the 310 girls named Salma in 2024. Its best rank for girls was #569, reached in 1999. That year also had the most girls given the name: 442. For comparison, it was #803 in 2015 and unranked in 1950.
Social Security card records list Salma in 54 years of the 146 from 1880 to 2025, starting in 1918 with 6 babies. In all, 10,316 US babies have been given the name, all of them girls. Its busiest decade was the 2000s, with 3,488 babies named Salma.
Over the 10 years from 2016 to 2025, 3,100 US girls were named Salma; the busiest of those years was 2016, with 385. In 2025 that was about 1 in 5,782 of the girls in SSA’s list for the year.
Among the states, Salma ranked highest in Minnesota in 2025, at #301 for girls there. It was not in the top 100 of any state. Related spellings in the SSA files include Selma (27,202 babies since 1880) and Sal (3,663 babies since 1880). Rarer spellings such as Salima, Zalma and Salmah are summarised on this page.
Meaning not yet researched.
We publish a meaning only with a cited source and a confidence label, and never generate one. Meanings are being researched for the most common names first.
Wikidata records this spelling as a given name in Arabic. That is where the name is used, not necessarily where it comes from.
Rare spellings summarised here: Salima (598), Zalma (89), Salmah (59), Salmai (26).
Numbers are all-time US births. Links come from Wikidata’s “said to be the same as” (P460, CC0) and our spelling rule: at most two letters different, with the same sound pattern.
No nicknames listed for Salma in the open dataset we use.
Source: carltonnorthern/nicknames (Apache-2.0).
US girls. Rank within each state. SSA leaves out states where fewer than five girls got the name, so 34 are not listed.
| State | Births 2025 | Rank 2025 | Rank 2015 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minnesota | 19 | #301 | #212 |
| Florida | 38 | #487 | #794 |
| Maryland | 11 | #502 | #691 |
| Texas | 47 | #662 | #958 |
| Washington | 10 | #672 | #692 |
| Massachusetts | 8 | #674 | #511 |
| Illinois | 14 | #703 | #717 |
| New Jersey | 11 | #709 | #838 |
| Oklahoma | 5 | #814 | — |
| California | 36 | #825 | #721 |
| Colorado | 6 | #889 | #862 |
| New York | 15 | #1,022 | #707 |
| Michigan | 7 | #1,040 | #1,463 |
| Ohio | 8 | #1,115 | #616 |
| Virginia | 6 | #1,161 | #513 |
| Arizona | 5 | #1,193 | #941 |
| Pennsylvania | 6 | #1,369 | #933 |
Births and national rank for each year SSA lists the name, newest first.
| Year | Girls | Girls rank | Boys | Boys rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 278 | #937 | — | — |
| 2024 | 310 | #872 | — | — |
| 2023 | 295 | #907 | — | — |
| 2022 | 311 | #898 | — | — |
| 2021 | 290 | #919 | — | — |
| 2020 | 240 | #1,048 | — | — |
| 2019 | 289 | #919 | — | — |
| 2018 | 340 | #804 | — | — |
| 2017 | 362 | #767 | — | — |
| 2016 | 385 | #740 | — | — |
| 2015 | 351 | #803 | — | — |
| 2014 | 309 | #883 | — | — |
| 2013 | 324 | #826 | — | — |
| 2012 | 348 | #786 | 5 | #13,852 |
| 2011 | 313 | #844 | — | — |
| 2010 | 300 | #884 | — | — |
| 2009 | 360 | #789 | — | — |
| 2008 | 332 | #848 | — | — |
| 2007 | 349 | #825 | — | — |
| 2006 | 362 | #760 | — | — |
| 2005 | 358 | #750 | — | — |
| 2004 | 309 | #812 | — | — |
| 2003 | 377 | #694 | — | — |
| 2002 | 318 | #762 | — | — |
| 2001 | 364 | #684 | — | — |
| 2000 | 359 | #673 | — | — |
| 1999 | 442 | #569 | — | — |
| 1998 | 430 | #571 | — | — |
| 1997 | 291 | #735 | — | — |
| 1996 | 101 | #1,569 | — | — |
| 1995 | 49 | #2,581 | — | — |
| 1994 | 55 | #2,376 | — | — |
| 1993 | 46 | #2,669 | — | — |
| 1992 | 42 | #2,860 | — | — |
| 1991 | 41 | #2,872 | — | — |
| 1990 | 38 | #3,008 | — | — |
| 1989 | 26 | #3,871 | — | — |
| 1988 | 19 | #4,617 | — | — |
| 1987 | 24 | #3,715 | — | — |
| 1986 | 24 | #3,617 | — | — |
| 1985 | 12 | #5,966 | — | — |
| 1984 | 16 | #4,681 | — | — |
| 1983 | 13 | #5,384 | — | — |
| 1982 | 17 | #4,487 | — | — |
| 1981 | 16 | #4,689 | — | — |
| 1980 | 11 | #6,231 | — | — |
| 1979 | 5 | #11,515 | — | — |
| 1978 | 13 | #5,143 | — | — |
| 1977 | 5 | #10,895 | — | — |
| 1975 | 9 | #6,343 | — | — |
| 1974 | 10 | #5,671 | — | — |
| 1973 | 7 | #7,262 | — | — |
| 1972 | 10 | #5,378 | — | — |
| 1918 | 6 | #4,738 | — | — |
About the data: counts are Social Security card applications for US births, for names given to at least five babies of a sex in a year (SSA, names.zip, public domain). Ranks follow SSA’s own order: most births first, ties alphabetical. Files retrieved 2026-10-05 (checksum on our sources page).