Selma

Selma has more than one naming history. In northern Europe its origin is uncertain: it may be connected with Anselma or with the castle called Selma in James Macpherson's Ossian poems. Turkish Selma follows a separate route through Arabic Salma, a name associated with safety. These explanations should not be combined into one fixed translation.

Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf, a Nobel Prize recipient, gives the name a substantial literary association. In the United States, Selma also recalls the Alabama city central to the voting-rights marches. That place association is part of what the name may evoke today, while a family's own linguistic tradition explains which personal-name history it carries.