Sade
Feminine · “honor confers a crown”
Sade is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 9,981 girls against 121 boys since 1880.
Sade is Yoruba, and the name is a fragment of a longer one: Folasade, meaning honor confers a crown. Yoruba names are sentences, and their short forms carry the sentence with them.
How old is the name Sade?
Sade first appears in US birth records in 1985 — 40 years ago. The typical Sade alive today was born around 1993, making them about 32 years old. About 9,800 people named Sade are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Sade most popular?
Sade peaked in 1986, reaching #213 nationally. Today it ranks #2051, 1,838 places below that high. See the whole 1986 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Folasade to Sade
The story of Sade
Yoruba naming builds phrases rather than words, and shortening them to a distinctive syllable or two is ordinary practice. Folasade and its short form Sade traveled with Nigerian emigration to Britain and America. The name entered wide English-speaking use in the mid-1980s through a singer of Nigerian birth, and American use peaked around 1986.
Meaning
honor confers a crown
From the Yoruba Folasade — fola, 'honor' or 'wealth', and ade, 'crown'. Yoruba given names are typically full phrases commenting on the circumstances of a birth, and Sade is the customary shortening. The ade element is common and its meaning is not in doubt.
How the name formed
- Folasade
- Sade
Related forms: Ṣadé · Folaṣade · Shade
Pronouncing Sade
shah-DAY
Two syllables, stress on the second. The Yoruba ṣ is an sh sound, which the plain English spelling does not show.
Nicknames for Sade
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
- 1985
- Most girls named
- 19861,245 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #213reached in 1986
- Change vs 2024
- +4.5%92 in 2025, from 88
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.
Sade in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ṣadé in Yoruba — same name
- Folaṣade in Yoruba — related form
- Shade in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Sades among us
people named Sade are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 17,470 born in 2025 was named Sade
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 Jayne test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Sade's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Jayne climbed just as high around 1956, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jayne's path sketches the road Sade is walking now.
Sade 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 Sade is headed
Sade should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High 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.
Sade beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Sade in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is a complete and unusually good statement rather than a single word.
- It comes from a living and well-documented naming tradition.
- The end stress gives it a distinct rhythm against a front-stressed surname.
- The English spelling gives no hint of the sh sound, so it is misread constantly.
- It shares its spelling with an eighteenth-century French name of very different reputation.
- It is closely dated to the 1980s in American records.
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What they receive
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Sade
Feminine · #2051 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Sades are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 9,800 people named Sade are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Sade in 2025?
- Sade ranks #2051 among US girl names in 2025, with 92 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Sade?
- About 1 in every 17,470 US girls born in 2025 was named Sade — 92 in all.
- Will my child share the name Sade with classmates?
- Sade will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Sade
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Marla#2051 · Yvonne#2051 · Star#2051 · Blythe#2051 · Ryah#2051 · Jaylynn#2051 · Amya#2051 · Marta#2051
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Sade? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Sade and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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