Safiyyah
Feminine · “chosen friend”
Safiyyah is the Arabic word for a chosen friend — one selected and kept — and it belonged to one of the wives of the Prophet.
How old is the name Safiyyah?
Safiyyah first appears in US birth records in 1976 — 49 years ago. The typical Safiyyah alive today was born around 2008, making them about 17 years old. About 800 people named Safiyyah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Safiyyah most popular?
Safiyyah peaked in 1981, reaching #3532 nationally. Today it ranks #3975, 443 places below that high. See the whole 1981 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From safiyy to Safiyyah
The story of Safiyyah
Safiyyah bint Huyayy was a Jewish woman of Medina who became one of the Prophet's wives; the accounts of her life are substantial and much discussed. The name has been used across the Muslim world since. The doubled y in this spelling marks a consonant that Arabic doubles and English cannot easily show, which is why several transliterations exist.
Meaning
chosen friend, pure
From an Arabic root meaning to be pure or clear; safi is pure and safiyy a chosen intimate. The same root gives the name of the hill Safa in Mecca and the word for a person picked out from others.
How the name formed
- safiyy
- Safiyyah
Related forms: Safiya · Safiye · Safiya
Pronouncing Safiyyah
sa-FEE-yah
Three syllables with the stress in the middle; the doubled y is held audibly in Arabic.
Nicknames for Safiyyah
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
- 1976
- Most girls named
- 202536 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3532reached in 1981
- Change vs 2024
- +5.9%36 in 2025, from 34
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.
Safiyyah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Safiya in Arabic — spelling variant
- Safiye in Turkish — same name
- Safiya in Urdu — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania.
Safiyyahs among us
people named Safiyyah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 44,646 born in 2025 was named Safiyyah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Safiyyah
- #3975
- Safiyyah on the 2025 chart
- #641
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Safiyyah went to 36 girls in 2025, but Safiya, Safia and Safiyah and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 7 spellings went to 337, which makes it the 641st most-given girls’ name of the year — 3,334 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 4,769 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 44,646 for Safiyyah 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 Daralyn test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Safiyyah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Daralyn climbed just as high around 1958, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Daralyn's path sketches the road Safiyyah is walking now.
Safiyyah 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 Safiyyah is headed
Safiyyah should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low 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.
Safiyyah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Safiyyah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled meaning with a genuinely warm sense — a friend chosen and kept.
- Safi is a warm short form already in household use.
- Recognized across the whole Muslim world.
- The doubled y is a transliteration convention and looks odd to English readers.
- Safiya, Safiyyah and Safiyah are all in use and none is dominant in English.
- Eight letters is a fair amount for early handwriting.
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What they receive
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Safiyyah
Feminine · #3975 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Safiyyahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 800 people named Safiyyah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Safiyyah?
- Safiyyah is one of 7 recorded spellings. Safiya is the more common one — 168 births in 2025 against 36 for Safiyyah.
- How popular is the name Safiyyah in 2025?
- Safiyyah ranks #3975 among US girl names in 2025, with 36 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Safiyyah?
- About 1 in every 44,646 US girls born in 2025 was named Safiyyah — 36 in all.
- Will my child share the name Safiyyah with classmates?
- Safiyyah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Safiyyah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Rubie#3975 · Bradley#3975 · Jodi#3975 · An#3975 · Ilianna#3975 · Saja#3975 · Ansleigh#3975 · Dorcas#3975
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Safiyyah? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Safiyyah and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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