Ceylon
loc · Sinhala · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Ceylon is a name, most frequently recorded in Sri Lanka. It appears chiefly in Sinhala and English, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Borrowed from Portuguese Ceilão, from Old French Seilan (Marco Polo), from Persian سیلان (saylān), ultimately from Pali sīhaḷa, from Sanskrit सिंहल (siṃhala). Doublet of Sinhala.
- LKSri Lanka1 in 1.1K◐
- GYGuyana1 in 188K
- BRBrazil1 in 847K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈355 ●
- Sources
- 4 ●
- 1 in 188K ◐
across 4 countries
106 records
Official registry-verified
Guyana
Spellings & scripts●
Locally spelled Silon in IN India.
Meaning & origin●
- PortugueseCeilão●
- Old FrenchSeilanMarco Polo●
- Persianسیلانsaylān●
- Palisīhaḷa●
- Sanskritसिंहलsiṃhala●
Borrowed from Portuguese Ceilão, from Old French Seilan (Marco Polo), from Persian سیلان (saylān), ultimately from Pali sīhaḷa, from Sanskrit सिंहल (siṃhala). Doublet of Sinhala.
Sources 2
- 국립국어원 외래어 표기 용례 자료 (NIKL loanword/foreign-name transcription examples)
- Wiktionary
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LK Sri Lanka | 3,739 | 94 rec. | — | — | Ceylon | 4 |
| BR Brazil | 250 | — | 1 in 847K | 338 | — | — |
| US United States | 92△ | 2 rec. | 1 in 3.6M | 102 | — | 1 |
| IN India | 12 | 9 rec. | — | 1 | Silon | 4 |
| NL Netherlands | 9 | — | 1 in 1.9M | 9 | — | — |
| GY Guyana | 4 | — | 1 in 188K | 4 | — | — |
| BE Belgium | — | — | — | 28 | — | — |
| CZ Czechia | — | — | — | 2 | — | — |
| DM Dominica | — | — | — | 1 | — | — |
| AU Australia | — | — | — | 1 | — | — |
| EE Estonia | — | — | — | listed | — | — |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- Sinhala3.7K59%
- English95515%
- Malay121%
- Mongolian101%
- Vietnamese61%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Sinhala | 3,739 | 59% |
| English | 955 | 15% |
| Malay | 12 | 1% |
| Mongolian | 10 | 1% |
| Vietnamese | 6 | 1% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Other recorded senses●
Ceylon is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Finnish, Ceylon (former name of Sri Lanka: an island country in South Asia)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, Former name of Sri Lanka: an island country in South Asia .
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Over time●
Show as table
| Year | records |
|---|---|
| 1880 | 5 |
| 1913 | 5 |
| 1915 | 7 |
| 1917 | 5 |
| 1918 | 8 |
| 1919 | 7 |
| 1920 | 6 |
| 1921 | 5 |
| 1922 | 5 |
| 1925 | 6 |
| 1926 | 5 |
| 1927 | 8 |
| 1931 | 9 |
| 1947 | 5 |
US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 14 years between 1880–1947. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Ceylon Wallinb. 1922SESwedish musician
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence●
Attested in 9 sources across 5 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 92 | #40,470 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 92 | #40,470 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018) | — | 9 | #19,086 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1931 | 9 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1927 | 8 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1918 | 8 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1919 | 7 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1915 | 7 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1925 | 6 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1920 | 6 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1947 | 5 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1926 | 5 | — |
Reference works 1
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 22 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Ceylon?
- We estimate roughly 355 people bear Ceylon (counting its spellings and scripts) across 4 countries in our records.
- In which country does Ceylon have the most bearers?
- Ceylon is most frequently recorded in Sri Lanka, where it is most often spelled ceylon.
- What does the name Ceylon mean?
- Recorded meaning: Borrowed from Portuguese Ceilão, from Old French Seilan (Marco Polo), from Persian سیلان (saylān), ultimately from Pali sīhaḷa, from Sanskrit सिंहल (siṃhala). Doublet of Sinhala.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/ceylonThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.
About this data
Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Ceylon”. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.