Cecilia
About 111,688 American babies have been named Cecilia since 1880, most of them around 2025. In 2025 it ranked 108th. About 84,000 Cecilias are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 27.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Cecilia boys named Cecilia
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 111,688
- Estimated living today
- 84,000
- Median age today
- 27
- Peak year
- 2025
- Best rank
- 108th
- Rank in 2025
- 108th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 111,511 / 177
How old the living Cecilias are
born that year still alive today
Of the 111,688 babies given the name since 1880, about 84,000 are alive — 75 in every hundred. Roughly 31,000 of them are children and 15,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1998 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Latin
From Latin Caecilia, feminine form of Caecilius, a Roman family name possibly derived from the byname caecus (“blind”). Popularized by Saint Cecilia, third century Roman martyr, the patron saint of music.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Cecilias
- Cecilia Helena Payne Gaposchkin (1900–1979)British-born American astronomer
- Cecilia Bartoli (born 1966)Italian opera singer
- Cecilia Roth (born 1956)Argentine actress
- Cecilia Malmström (born 1968)Swedish politician
- Cecilia Beaux (1855–1942)American artist
- Cecilia Cheung (born 1980)Chinese actress and singer
- Cecilia Renata of Austria (1611–1644)Queen Consort of Poland (lived 1611-1644)
- Cecilia Bowes-Lyon, Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne (1862–1938)Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne (1862-1938); mother of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother; maternal grandmother of Elizabeth II
People named Cecilia with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Cecilia is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Cecilia is most concentrated in New Mexico (3.6×), Arizona (2.2×), California (1.7×), Texas (1.6×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2025
The most popular girls’ names the year Cecilia peaked:
Cecilia elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Italy girls | Cecilia | 20,685 | — |
| France girls | Cécilia +1 spelling | 20,390 | 82nd |
| England and Wales girls | Cecilia | 2,456 | 172nd |
| Norway girls | Cecilia | 841 | 227th |
| Sweden girls | Cecilia | 672 | 72nd |
| Switzerland girls | Cecilia +1 spelling | 492 | 245th |
| Ireland girls | Cecilia +1 spelling | 392 | 165th |
| Belgium girls | Cécilia +1 spelling | 361 | 541st |
| Scotland girls | Cecilia | 127 | 342nd |
| Poland girls | Cecilia | 41 birth registrations | 426th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Cecilia | 11 | 259th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Cecilia: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Cecilia | 254 | 0.020% | 248th |
| German girls | Switzerland | Cécilia | 16 | 0.001% | 834th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Cecilia | 71 | 0.016% | 237th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Cécilia | 52 | 0.012% | 359th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Cecilia | 98 | 0.150% | 41st |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Cécilia | 1 | 0.002% | 189th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Cecilia is most concentrated in Ticino, where 0.15% of children were given it – 95 of them.
Cecilia: rank by region
In 2025, Cecilia was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Cecilia | 584 | 8 |
In 2024, Cecilia was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Cecilia | 8 | 1 |
In 2025, Cecilia was given 2 times or more in 1 region of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Małopolskie | Cecilia | 232 | 2 |
In 2023, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Cecilia appears in the lists for Brussels-Capital Region (238th) and Province of Antwerp (281st).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Cecilia by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 49 | 246th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Cecilia among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands girls | Cecilia | 4,021 | 11,760 |
| Finland girls | Cecilia +2 spellings | 1,484 | 5,289 |
| the Netherlands boys | Cecilia | — | 354 |
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Cecilia lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 19,467 women called Cecilia were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Asturias | Cecilia | 714 | 1.346 | 140 |
| Lleida | Cecilia | 279 | 1.252 | 134 |
| Cantabria | Cecilia | 376 | 1.228 | 154 |
| Ávila | Cecilia | 98 | 1.226 | 159 |
| Cáceres | Cecilia | 227 | 1.159 | 175 |
| Soria | Cecilia | 49 | 1.105 | 163 |
Listed in 52 of Spain's 52 provinces. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Cecilia against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.