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Selina vs Selvin

American parents have registered 19,225 Selinas since 1880, against 1,548 Selvins. Selina is still ahead, with 176 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Selina against Selvin, 1880 to 2025 0 200 400 600 800 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Selina Selvin

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Selina has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1930, when Selina had 24 and Selvin had 12.

Side by side

  Selina Selvin
Total US births 19,2251,548
Most in one year 70465
Babies in 2025 17644
Estimated living today 17,0001,400
Median age today 3216
Peak year 19952021
Best rank 371st girls2,173rd boys
Rank in 2025 1,272nd2,833rd
First recorded 18801914
Girls / boys 19,225 / 00 / 1,548

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Selinas alive today are over 32; half the Selvins are over 16. That is 16 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Selina and Selvin.