A female name. the history of this name is obscure. The first example noted is 1619 Zelina Gardener. Selinah occurs in 1687, Sillina in 1697. Celina or Selina Finch, b. about 1680, m. the 1st Earl Ferrers, and her d. Selina Shirley became the Methodist Countess of Huntingdon. The name has ever since been current in the Shirley and Finch families and in other families connected with them. There is no reason to identify the name, as is sometimes done, with Greek σελήνη ‘the moon’, and on the whole it seems as if Charlotte Mary Yonge, History of ChristianNames, 2 vols. 1863. Revised ed. 1884 may be right in taking it to be from French Céline (Latin Coelina, derivative of coelum ‘heaven’) the name of a 5th-C saint, mother of St Rémy. This is borne out by occasional spellings Celina.

Not used in England until C18, when, probably in mistake for the French Céline, it belonged to the Countess of Huntingdon of Wesleyan fame. It derives from Greek Selené, a name for the moon-goddess and, later, for one of the Cleopatras. From a radical (elé) meaning ‘heat’ or ‘light’. (Yonge.) Cf. Helen.

A female name derived, like the French Céline, from the Greek name Σεληνη, signifying the moon. Conf. the Scripture name Hodesh, signifying the new moon.

Greek (feminine) - Pure radiance, as the moon.

A Greek name, meaning: A species of parsley: moon.