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Girl · Latin
Cecilia
Say it: seh-SEEL-yuh
Meaning
Latin, feminine of the Roman family name Caecilius, traditionally derived from caecus 'blind'.
Likelythe main view, with some doubt.
Popular in medieval England as Cecily, and in Catholic Europe as Cecilia.
Its wave through time
Timeless: in steady use for over a century
In the United States
- 100,720 babies given this name since 1880
- At its height in 1904, about 1 in 1,100 girls
- 1,846 babies in 2020
Through the ages
- Ancient Rome750 BC to AD 476
- The Early Middle Ages400 to 800
- The High and Late Middle Ages1100 to 1450
- The Renaissance1400 to 1600
- The Colonial Americas1500 to 1800
- Victorian and Belle Époque1837 to 1914
- The Modern Age1880 to today
Used by
Early ChristianLatinEnglishFrenchSpanishItalianGermanPolishBrazilianPortugueseMexican
The family of the name
Other spellings: Cecily, Cecelia
| French | Cécile |
|---|---|
| Spanish | Cecilia |
| Italian | Cecilia |
| Portuguese | Cecília |
| German | Cäcilie |
| Polish | Cecylia |
| Hungarian | Cecília |
| English | Cecily |
Famous bearers
- Cecilia, Roman martyr and patron saint of music
Names worth a look
Where this comes from
- Lives of the saints and early Christian martyrologies
- English poll taxes and lay subsidy rolls (13th and 14th centuries)
- Calendars of saints and name days
- National birth statistics of European countries source
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.
Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.