Sailor
Feminine · Old English roots · “one who sails”
Sailor is given to both — 3,603 girls and 687 boys since 1880. See Sailor as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Sailor is the everyday English word taken up as a name, and it arrived in company — one of a set of two-syllable occupational words, alongside Harper, Piper and Sawyer, that American parents began using as given names in the last few decades. The word itself is old: it settled into this -or spelling by the sixteenth century, edging out the earlier "sailer." Said aloud it is entirely transparent — nobody has to ask twice how it is written.
How old is the name Sailor?
Sailor first appears in US birth records in 1998 — 27 years ago. The typical Sailor is a kid of about 8 — this name's wave is very recent. About 3,600 people named Sailor are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Sailor most popular?
Sailor peaked in 2017, reaching #1055 nationally. Today it ranks #1132, 77 places below that high. See the whole 2017 chart.
Sailor appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From segl (Old English, 'sail') to Sailor
The story of Sailor
The word comes from sail — Old English segl — and for a long stretch of Middle English the person who did the sailing was a "sailer"; the -or spelling took over by the sixteenth century and never left. Its life as a given name is much younger and thoroughly American, part of the wave of trade-word names that also put Sawyer, Mason and Piper on birth certificates. Its visibility owes something to the model Sailor Brinkley-Cook, whose name arrived in public around the time the spelling first showed up in national records. In American use it has been given almost entirely to girls, which places it beside Harper and Piper rather than beside the word's own seafaring history.
Meaning
one who sails; a seafarer
As a surname, Saylor/Sailor often has a separate root: it is an Americanized spelling of German Seiler, an occupational name for a rope-maker. The given name in US use draws on the English word, not the German trade.
How the name formed
- seglOld English, 'sail'
- sailer
- sailor
- Sailor
Pronouncing Sailor
SAY-lur
Identical to the common noun, with the stress on the first syllable. There is no second pronunciation to correct.
Nicknames for Sailor
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
- 1998
- Most girls named
- 2016245 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1055reached in 2017
- Change vs 2024
- +21.2%206 in 2025, from 170
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.
Sailor in other languages
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, Florida, California.
Sailors among us
people named Sailor are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 7,802 born in 2025 was named Sailor
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Sailor
- #1132
- Sailor on the 2025 chart
- #202
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Sailor went to 206 girls in 2025, but Saylor is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 1,621, which makes it the 202nd most-given girls’ name of the year — 930 places above the chart.
- Saylor1,415
- Sailor206
About 1 girl in 992 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 7,802 for Sailor 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 Janetta test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Sailor's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Janetta climbed just as high around 1935, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Janetta's path sketches the road Sailor is walking now.
Sailor 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 Sailor is headed
Sailor 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.
Sailor beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Sailor in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Pronunciation is automatic for any English speaker — the name is a word everyone already says.
- Two syllables with the familiar -er ending shared by Harper, Piper and Sawyer, so it sits naturally among current classmates' names.
- Rare enough in practice that a child is unlikely to share it with anyone at school, while never sounding unfamiliar.
- Carries a concrete image rather than an abstract one, which tends to make a name easy for people to remember after one introduction.
- Sailor and Saylor both circulate, and Sayler turns up too, so expect to spell it out on forms even though people hear it correctly the first time.
- The nautical association is permanent and comes with baggage: "sailor talk," "drunken sailor," the old sailor-suit joke. Most of it is mild, but it will be made.
- There are no inherited short forms to fall back on. Some families like that; others find a long name without a nickname harder to soften.
- In US records this has been overwhelmingly a girls' name, so a boy called Sailor would be the less expected case — workable, but he would field the occasional double take.
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What they receive
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Sailor
Feminine · Old English roots · #1132 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Sailors are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,600 people named Sailor are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Sailor?
- Sailor is one of 2 recorded spellings. Saylor is the more common one — 1,415 births in 2025 against 206 for Sailor.
- How popular is the name Sailor in 2025?
- Sailor ranks #1132 among US girl names in 2025, with 206 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Sailor?
- About 1 in every 7,802 US girls born in 2025 was named Sailor — 206 in all.
- Will my child share the name Sailor with classmates?
- Sailor will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Sailor
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Hollis#1132 · Kaya#1132 · Valley#1129 · Julissa#1135 · Ailana#1135 · Lucie#1129 · Dara#1129 · Grecia#1137
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Sailor? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Sailor and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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