Sabah
Feminine · “morning”
Sabah is the Arabic word for morning, and it is one of the first things anyone learns to say in the language: sabah al-khayr, morning of goodness, which is good morning. The reply is sabah al-noor, morning of light. The name is the ordinary word.
How old is the name Sabah?
Sabah first appears in US birth records in 1968 — 57 years ago. The typical Sabah alive today was born around 1999, making them about 26 years old. About 500 people named Sabah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Sabah most popular?
Sabah peaked in 1996, reaching #4583 nationally. Today it ranks #11932, 7,349 places below that high. See the whole 1996 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From sabah to Sabah
The story of Sabah
The morning greeting in Arabic is a small exchange rather than a single word, and the reply is expected to be more generous than the greeting — one person offers a morning of goodness and the other returns a morning of light, or of flowers, or of cream, depending on how much warmth they intend. The name sits inside that. Its best-known bearer was a Lebanese singer and actress who worked under the single name Sabah for six decades, made something like fifty albums and ninety films, and was one of the defining voices of Arabic popular music in the twentieth century.
Meaning
morning
Arabic sabah, the morning, from a verb meaning to become morning. It is entirely current and is used as a name for both women and men in different countries. A Malaysian state on Borneo carries the same spelling and is unrelated.
How the name formed
- sabah
- Sabah
Related forms: Sabah · Sabah · Sabah
Pronouncing Sabah
sah-BAH
Two syllables, stress on the second, with the final h lightly breathed rather than silent. English speakers usually say SAH-buh, moving the weight forward and dropping the ending.
Nicknames for Sabah
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1968
- Most girls named
- 199622 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #4583reached in 1996
- Change vs 2024
- +16.7%7 in 2025, from 6
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Sabah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Sabah in Arabic — same name
- Sabah in Turkish — same name
- Sabah in Urdu — transliteration
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York.
Sabahs among us
people named Sabah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 229,610 born in 2025 was named Sabah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Sabah
- #11932
- Sabah on the 2025 chart
- #926
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Sabah went to 7 girls in 2025, but Saba is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 34, which makes it the 926th most-given girls’ name of the year — 11,006 places above the chart.
- Saba27
- Sabah7
About 1 girl in 47,273 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 229,610 for Sabah itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Kalliopi test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Sabah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Kalliopi climbed just as high around 1973, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Kalliopi's path sketches the road Sabah is walking now.
Sabah sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Sabah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Sabah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled Arabic meaning that is one of the most-said words in the language.
- Two syllables and five letters, with nothing difficult in either.
- It is in genuine current use across the Arab world and Turkey.
- English speakers move the stress to the front, which changes the shape of the word.
- Saba and Sabah are separate names with separate meanings and will be confused.
- It is also the name of a Malaysian state, which is what a search engine will offer first.
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What they receive
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Sabah
Feminine · #11932 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Sabahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 500 people named Sabah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Sabah?
- Sabah is one of 2 recorded spellings. Saba is the more common one — 27 births in 2025 against 7 for Sabah.
- How popular is the name Sabah in 2025?
- Sabah ranks #11932 among US girl names in 2025, with 7 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Sabah?
- About 1 in every 229,610 US girls born in 2025 was named Sabah — 7 in all.
- Will my child share the name Sabah with classmates?
- Sabah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Sabah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Vina#11932 · Retta#11932 · Missouri#11932 · Iola#11932 · Eddie#11932 · Thomas#11932 · Louetta#11932 · Elvina#11932
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Sabah? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Sabah and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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