Sable
Feminine · “sable”
Sable is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 1,702 girls against 16 boys since 1880.
Sable is a marten whose fur was the most valuable in Europe — and the word came into English from Russian by way of the fur trade.
How old is the name Sable?
Sable first appears in US birth records in 1923 — 102 years ago. The typical Sable alive today was born around 1994, making them about 31 years old. About 1,700 people named Sable are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Sable most popular?
Sable peaked in 1986, reaching #900 nationally. Today it ranks #2691, 1,791 places below that high. See the whole 1986 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From sobol to Sable
The story of Sable
Sable fur was the most valuable in medieval Europe and the Russian trade in it drove much of the eastward expansion into Siberia; the word came west with the pelts. Heraldry took sable as the word for black. Sable entered American given-name use recently and is in current use.
Meaning
sable, black
From the Old French sable, from a Slavic word — the Russian sobol — for the marten and its fur. Heraldry uses sable for black, since the fur was dark. The word traveled with the trade. The etymology is documented.
How the name formed
- sobol
- sable
- Sable
Related forms: Соболь · Sable
Pronouncing Sable
SAY-bul
Two syllables, stress on the first. French sable is SAH-bluh and means sand.
Nicknames for Sable
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
- 1923
- Most girls named
- 1986181 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #900reached in 1986
- Change vs 2024
- +137.0%64 in 2025, from 27
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.
Sable in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Соболь in Russian — related form
- Sable in French — related form
Sables among us
people named Sable are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 25,114 born in 2025 was named Sable
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Demetra test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Sable's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Demetra climbed just as high around 1966, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Demetra's path sketches the road Sable is walking now.
Sable 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
Where Sable is headed
Sable should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Sable beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Sable in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- That the fur trade drove Russian expansion into Siberia is a first-rate fact.
- That heraldry uses the word for black is a genuinely good detail.
- Two clean syllables with no pronunciation risk.
- It is an ordinary English noun for an animal and a color.
- The French word of the same spelling means sand.
- It is very new as a given name.
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What they receive
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Sable
Feminine · #2691 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Sables are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,700 people named Sable are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Sable in 2025?
- Sable ranks #2691 among US girl names in 2025, with 64 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Sable?
- About 1 in every 25,114 US girls born in 2025 was named Sable — 64 in all.
- Will my child share the name Sable with classmates?
- Sable will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Sable
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Maricela#2691 · Zulema#2691 · Layana#2691 · Meher#2691 · Cyra#2691 · Aeris#2691 · Adelyne#2691 · Annmarie#2691
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Sable? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Sable and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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