Velma is a 19th-century American invented name, possibly a variant of Wilma or Selma — from the Old Germanic wil ("determined will") + helm ("protection"). HBO Max's Velma (2023-2024) was the streaming service's most-watched original animated series in its debut week. Velma Pollard — Jamaican poet. Velma Demerson — Canadian activist.
Velma 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.
In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Velma reduce to 8, The Visionary. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.