Selim

Spellings & scripts●

Locally spelled Селим in RU Russia, KZ Kazakhstan, KG Kyrgyzstan, Şelim in TM Turkmenistan and Სელიმ in GE Georgia.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin●

Attested across 14 languages in the etymology graph.

Languages●

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Selim is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

• a separate given name30K records spelled Selim4 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in India, Türkiye, United States, Ethiopia

  Also written Sélim, Selím, Selîm

• Spanish given name14K records spelled Selim14 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Argentina, Türkiye, Chile, Brazil

  Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

  Also written Selím, Sélim, Selìm, Sêlím, Şelim

• Russian given name9.9K records spelled Selim36 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Russia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Türkiye

  Languages: Russian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian

  Also written Селим, Селім, Şelim, Sélim, Ŝęlįm

• Albanian given name5.7K records spelled Selim2 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Albania, Kosovo, United States, Türkiye

  Also written Sélim

• Finnish given name4.9K records spelled Selim3 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Finland, India, Türkiye, Estonia

  Languages: Finnish, Estonian

  Also written Sélim

• Swahili given name3.8K records spelled Selim3 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in India, Türkiye, United States, Nigeria

  Also written Şelim

50 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Selim is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

• In Swedish, Selim är en variant av arabiskans → Salim med betydelsen ’sund, frisk’, vanlig i Turkiet och Bosnien. Namnet Selim kom till Sverige på 1820-talet då även andra arabiska och turkiska namn började användas. I den finlandssvenska almanackan 4 juni.

  as a name·Förnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon

• In Russian, Selim Stefanovich, peasant. 1640.

  as a word·A Dictionary of Period Russian Names (Wickenden / Goldschmidt 1996)

• In non, first-person plural present subjunctive of selja

  as a word·kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

• In Portuguese, saddle (seat of a bicycle or motorcycle)

  as a word·kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

• In Turkmen, Sagdyn-kemsiz oglan.

  as a word·turkmenkultur.com — Türkmen Adam Atlary (Turkmen personal names, Kylyç 1998)

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●

XK ASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search) — 150 years between 1854–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

• Selim Ib. 1470TR9th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1512 to 1520
• Selim IIb. 1524TR11th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (1566–1574)
• Selim IIIb. 1761TR28th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (1789–1807)
• Selim Palmgrenb. 1878FIFinnish composer and pianist (1878–1951)
• Salim Alib. 1896INnot in their usual nameIndian ornithologist (1896-1987)
• Salim Ahmed Salimb. 1942TZnot in their usual nameTanzanian politician and diplomat
• Leif Segerstamb. 1944FInot in their usual nameFinnish conductor and composer (1944–2024)
• Salim Idrisb. 1957SYnot in their usual nameSyrian military officer (born 1958)
• Salim Kechioucheb. 1979FRnot in their usual nameFrench actor
• Selim Amallahb. 1996BEMoroccan association football player

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●

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 646 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Selim?

We estimate roughly 11 thousand people bear Selim (counting its spellings and scripts) across 8 countries in our records.

In which country does Selim have the most bearers?

Selim is most frequently recorded in Türkiye, where it is most often spelled selim.

How common is Selim compared with other names?

In Türkiye, Selim is the 128th most common given name of 294,597 given names recorded there.

Is Selim a male or female name?

Selim is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.

What does the name Selim mean?

Recorded meaning: Sağlam, kusursuz, doğru.