Sahar
Feminine · “dawn”
Sahar is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 2,453 girls against 29 boys since 1880.
Sahar is the Arabic word for the last part of the night — the hour just before dawn, when the sky begins to lighten but the sun has not risen. Arabic has a word for it and English does not.
How old is the name Sahar?
Sahar first appears in US birth records in 1971 — 54 years ago. The typical Sahar alive today was born around 2000, making them about 25 years old. About 2,400 people named Sahar are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Sahar most popular?
Sahar peaked in 1996, reaching #1780 nationally. Today it ranks #3517, 1,737 places below that high. See the whole 1996 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Sahar
Arabic divides the night finely, and sahar names its last stretch — the hour of the pre-dawn meal in Ramadan and of the prayer said before sunrise. As a personal name it is used across the Levant, the Gulf and North Africa, and separately in Iran, where Persian uses the same word. It reaches American records with families from all of them, and it is sometimes confused with the Hebrew Sahar, which means moon.
Meaning
dawn, the hour before sunrise
From an Arabic root naming the final watch of the night; the same word gives suhur, the meal eaten before dawn in Ramadan, and the sense is specifically of the time before daybreak rather than daybreak itself.
Pronouncing Sahar
SAH-har
Two syllables, first stressed, with a breathy middle. English speakers often say suh-HAR.
Nicknames for Sahar
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
- 1971
- Most girls named
- 199683 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1780reached in 1996
- Change vs 2024
- −8.5%43 in 2025, from 47
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.
Sahar in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Sahar in Arabic — same name
- Sahar in Persian — same name
- Seher in Turkish — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Sahars among us
people named Sahar are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 37,378 born in 2025 was named Sahar
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Sahar
- #3517
- Sahar on the 2025 chart
- #912
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Sahar went to 43 girls in 2025, but Sahaar is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 48, which makes it the 912th most-given girls’ name of the year — 2,605 places above the chart.
- Sahar43
- Sahaar5
About 1 girl in 33,485 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 37,378 for Sahar 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 Krisha test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Sahar's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Krisha climbed just as high around 1978, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Krisha's path sketches the road Sahar is walking now.
Sahar 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 Sahar is headed
Sahar 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.
Sahar beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Sahar 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 of unusual precision — a specific hour that English cannot name in one word.
- Five letters and two syllables, easy to write and to say.
- Recognized across the Arab world, Iran and Turkey.
- The breathy middle consonant flattens in English speech.
- Sahar in Hebrew means moon and is a separate name, which occasionally confuses.
- It is close to Sahara in an American ear, and that will be assumed.
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What they receive
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Sahar
Feminine · #3517 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Sahars are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,400 people named Sahar are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Sahar?
- Sahar is the most-used spelling in US records — 43 of the 48 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Sahaar.
- How popular is the name Sahar in 2025?
- Sahar ranks #3517 among US girl names in 2025, with 43 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Sahar?
- About 1 in every 37,378 US girls born in 2025 was named Sahar — 43 in all.
- Will my child share the name Sahar with classmates?
- Sahar will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Sahar
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Maida#3517 · Amada#3517 · Afton#3517 · Allura#3517 · Jaina#3517 · Hallee#3517 · Katara#3517 · Joella#3517
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Sahar? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Sahar and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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