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Salle vs Salma

American parents have registered 10,316 Salmas since 1880, against 111 Salles. Salma is still ahead, with 278 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Salle against Salma, 1880 to 2025 0 125 250 375 500 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Salle Salma

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

Of the 74 years in which either name was published, Salma for 54 years and Salle for 20 years. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Salle Salma
Total US births 11110,316
Most in one year 8442
Babies in 2025 under 5278
Estimated living today 6010,000
Median age today 7316
Peak year 19261999
Best rank 3,564th girls569th girls
Rank in 2025 unranked936th
First recorded 19261918
Girls / boys 111 / 010,311 / 5

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 Salles alive today are over 73; half the Salmas are over 16. That is 57 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Salle Salma
France 6010,325

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

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