Sabin
Masculine · “of the Sabines”
Sabin is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 713 boys against 6 girls since 1880.
Sabin names one of the peoples Rome absorbed before it was an empire, and it reached American records as a surname at least as often as a first name. It is given almost entirely to sons. The bearer most people have benefited from without knowing it gave away the thing he is known for.
How old is the name Sabin?
Sabin first appears in US birth records in 1917 — 108 years ago. The typical Sabin alive today was born around 2001, making them about 24 years old. About 700 people named Sabin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Sabin most popular?
Sabin peaked in 1976, reaching #2245 nationally. See the whole 1976 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Sabinus to Sabin
The story of Sabin
Two oral polio vaccines competed in the nineteen-fifties: an injected one made from killed virus, and a swallowed one made from live virus weakened until it could not cause disease. The second was easier to give, needed no needles or trained staff, and produced immunity in the gut that stopped the virus spreading, which is why it became the vaccine used to drive polio out of most of the world. Albert Sabin tested it partly on himself and his own children, and then — unable to run a large trial in America, where the injected vaccine was already in use — ran it in the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War, with millions of children, in one of the strangest scientific collaborations of the period. He never patented it. Asked about the money he had forgone, he said the vaccine belonged to everybody and he had no interest in a royalty.
Meaningscholars disagree
of the Sabines
The Roman family name meant a person of the Sabine people, hill-dwellers north-east of Rome who were absorbed early and whose own language survives only in fragments. What the Sabines called themselves, and what that word meant, is not recoverable — the name describes a people whose own name for the people is lost.
How the name formed
- Sabinus
- Sabin
Related forms: Sabin · Sabin · Sabino · Sabino
Pronouncing Sabin
SAY-bin
Two syllables with the stress at the front in English. French and Romanian put it on the second and say the vowels differently, so the same spelling is a noticeably different name abroad.
Nicknames for Sabin
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
- 1917
- Most boys named
- 199927 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2245reached in 1976
- Change vs 2023
- −16.7%10 in 2024, from 12
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.
Sabin in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Sabin in French — same name
- Sabin in Romanian — same name
- Sabino in Italian — same name
- Sabino in Spanish — same name
Sabins among us
people named Sabin are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Sabin sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- Two syllables with front stress is the plainest shape English has.
- It works for a child of either sex without alteration.
- It is genuinely rare and every letter behaves as English expects.
- Sabine and Saban will both be written for it.
- The spelling is recorded for a few girls, but nearly every child with it is a boy.
- The people it names left almost no trace of themselves, so the meaning stops at a label.
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Sabin
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Sabins are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Sabin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Sabin in 2025?
- Sabin is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Sabin with classmates?
- Sabin will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More S names
The most-given names starting with S, all years combined.
Steven#271 · Stephen#383 · Samuel#18 · Scott#534 · Sean#489 · Shawn#681 · Stanley#863 · Steve#1609
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Sabin? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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