Entry № 9360 · Greek origin

Selene Selene — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ seh-LEE-nee /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Greek
Meaning
"Moon"
Syllables
2
First recorded
Ancient (Greek)

A name that means "moon".

Selene (Σελήνη) is the name of the Greek goddess of the moon — drawn each night across the sky in a chariot pulled by two white horses. She is the sister of Helios (the sun) and Eos (the dawn). The element selenium was named after her by the chemist Berzelius in 1817.

Selene has been quietly available as a girl's name for centuries and has been rising steadily in the 2020s. It now sits in the U.S.

Moon — a Greek name.

The name in its native script.

Σελήνη
Transliteration
Selēnē
Pronunciation
/ səˈliː.ni /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Selene stands.

Selene does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.

Selenes before her.

Real people
Selena Gomez
American singer and actress. (Different transliteration, same Greek root.)
born 1992
In fiction
Selene
Goddess of the moon in Greek mythology.
Ancient Greek myth
Selene
Vampire heroine of the Underworld film series.
2003–present

Names connected to Selene.

The number behind Selene.

6

The Nurturer

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Selene reduce to 6, The Nurturer. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.