Ceylon
Ceylon was last recorded in 1947, when 5 babies were given it; 86 Americans have been recorded with it between 1880 and 1947 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Ceylon by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
What does Ceylon mean?
Wiktionary, English section
Ceylon is “a male given name transferred from the place name.”
Borrowed from Portuguese Ceilão, from Old French Seilan (Marco Polo), from Persian سیلان (saylān), ultimately from Pali sīhaḷa, from Sanskrit सिंहल (siṃhala). Doublet of Sinhala.
/seɪˈlɑn/
Meaning: Wiktionary, English section, as of Sep 25, 2026 (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
How popular is Ceylon?
Unranked in 2025
Its last boys’ rank on record is #3,801, in 1947; SSA lists a name only in years with 5 or more births.
9 babies in 1931, the peak
Ceylon peaked in 1931, when 9 boys were given it, #2,689 among boys’ names. It was not recorded in 2025.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1947 | 5 | #3,801 | 2.7 |
| 1931 | 9 | #2,689 | 8.7 |
| 1927 | 8 | #3,205 | 7.1 |
| 1926 | 5 | #4,299 | 4.5 |
| 1925 | 6 | #3,809 | 5.4 |
| 1922 | 5 | #4,403 | 4.6 |
| 1921 | 5 | #4,437 | 4.5 |
| 1920 | 6 | #3,894 | 5.6 |
| 1919 | 7 | #3,455 | 7.1 |
| 1918 | 8 | #3,148 | 7.9 |
Every recorded year (14)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1917 | 5 | #4,079 | 5.4 |
| 1915 | 7 | #3,137 | 8.2 |
| 1913 | 5 | #2,892 | 9.8 |
| 1880 | 5 | #935 | 45.3 |
Ranks and shares: boys’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all boys SSA recorded that year.
Is Ceylon a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Ceylon has been recorded only for boys: SSA lists no girls with the name in 14 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Ceylon: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Ceylon, and how old are they?
An estimated 3 Americans named Ceylon and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026, too few to state an age range. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 184 people named Ceylon (92 women and girls, 92 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 6 born in the U.S. The Census count is 30.7 times that prediction. Possible reasons: the Census counts people born abroad, whom SSA’s files leave out, and it records the name people give, which SSA may have recorded under another spelling or as part of a compound name.
Living estimate: SSA births carried forward with the survival rates in SSA’s cohort life tables (2024 Trustees Report) for each birth year and sex. How the estimate is made. Count: Census Bureau, first names in the 2020 Census (released April 14, 2026; names reported 100 or more times, with the Bureau’s disclosure-avoidance adjustment).
Names spelled alike
Of these 8 names spelled alike, given to 3,222 babies since 1880, Ceylon is the eighth most given (2.7% of them). In 2025 none of their 68 babies recorded by SSA was a Ceylon (SSA lists a name only with 5 or more babies of one sex).
Spelled alike: names in the SSA national file with the same pattern of letters and sounds and at most two letters apart, and Wiktionary’s listed forms; births since 1880 and in 2025, and each name’s peak year, from the SSA national file, published May 8, 2026. Some are separate names, not spellings of one.
More about Ceylon and names like it
- Compare Ceylon and KeylanBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 1930sCeylon peaked in 1931.
- From place namesWiktionary’s origin for Ceylon: every such name, by how often it is given.
- The top names of 1931The year the most babies were named Ceylon.
- Names starting with CMost given first.