Silja
Torn between Silja and another name? Compare them side by side →
Meaning
a short form of Cecilia, from the Roman family name Caecilius, from Latin caecus, "blind"
How popular is Silja around the world?
In the United States, Silja is not on the Social Security record for 2020 to 2025: names under 5 in a year are withheld at source. In Norway, 4 girls were given the name Silja in 2025.
Silja is on the official records of Norway.
United States
under 5 a year
In the United States, Silja is not on the Social Security record for 2020 to 2025: names under 5 in a year are withheld at source.
Silja appears in US Social Security baby-name records only in small numbers: never enough in any decade to draw a popularity curve.
Births with a Social Security record. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration
Norway
1 in 6,700register 2026
In Norway, 4 girls were given the name Silja in 2025.
share of the girls on the register for that year, SSB’s own figure
People who have or have had a Norwegian ID number, emigrants left out, from Statistics Norway’s name statistics (release of January 2026): by year of birth for 1945–2020 (everyone born that year who was ever registered in Norway, including people who registered later and people who have since died) and by year of naming from 2021; only first names carried by 200 or more living people are listed, counts under 4 are withheld, and SSB merges spellings that differ only by letters outside the Norwegian alphabet. The shares are SSB’s own, of the people of that sex and year in that count; the 2025 figure counts the children named that year, and no year is a count of births. Source: Statistics Norway (SSB), table 10467 (updated 2026-01-28)
Austria
last on record 2022
Silja is not on the 2025 record for Austria, which publishes every first name down to a single birth, so the name was not given there that year.
The count never rose above 3 in a year, too few to chart.
Live births in Austria by year of birth, 1984–2025, from Statistik Austria’s first-name statistics; spellings that differ only by special characters are counted together (umlauts stay apart), every name down to a single birth is published, and the count covers babies with Austrian citizenship only until 2009, every baby from 2010, and from 2015 also births abroad to mothers living in Austria. Shares divide by Statistik Austria’s count of live births from 2010, and before that by the file’s own total for the year. Source: Statistik Austria - data.statistik.gv.at (OGDEXT_VORNAMEN_1, updated 2026-07-09)
Not on the record in Spain, Mexico City, Argentina, Puerto Rico, England and Wales, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland and Poland: those registries withhold small counts, so rare uses may sit below their floors.
Not on the Chile record: nametree keeps spellings that reached 5 registrations in some year, so rarer uses are not shown. Not on the Montevideo record for 1940 to 2011: that registry withholds nothing, so this spelling was not given there in those years. Not on the France record: nametree keeps spellings that reached 20 births in some year, so rarer uses are not shown. Not on the South Australia record for 1944 to 2017: that registry withholds nothing, so this spelling was not given there in those years.
The Silja deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Silja 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 Silja fits with your family’s names and surname.
Does Silja fit YOUR family?
nametree reads your family’s names and finds the ones that belong. Free, private, no ads.
Add Silja to your family’s tree →