Selena
Meaning
"moon goddess"
The story
Selena reaches back to Selene, the Greek goddess who drove the moon across the night sky, and the name, in various spellings, has been in quiet use for centuries. In America it stayed near the edges of the records until Selena Quintanilla, the Texas-born Queen of Tejano music, filled stadiums, won a Grammy, and was poised for an English-language breakthrough when she was murdered in 1995 at just twenty-three; her posthumous album Dreaming of You debuted at the top of the national charts. A wave of baby Selenas arrived in the 1990s, and while we cannot prove the connection, the timing is hard to ignore. The name has stayed present ever since, helped along by Selena Gomez, herself reportedly named for the singer. Moon goddess, fallen star, enduring choice: Selena carries more light than most names twice its age.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Selena peaked in the 1990s and the 2020s in nearly equal measure.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
3,546 people · the #3,475 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 58,824 · median age 7
Among people named Selena living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 2010s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 1,283 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Selena
Most people given the name Selena in the United States are teenagers or young adults today.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Selena deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Selena truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Selena fits with your family’s names and surname.
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