Sakinah
Feminine · “tranquility”
Sakina and Shekhinah are the same word in two religions. Arabic sakina is the tranquility God sends down; Hebrew shekhinah is the divine presence that dwells among people. Both come from a root meaning to settle or to dwell, and both name God being present.
How old is the name Sakinah?
Sakinah first appears in US birth records in 1971 — 54 years ago. The typical Sakinah alive today was born around 1991, making them about 34 years old. About 1,000 people named Sakinah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Sakinah most popular?
Sakinah peaked in 1976, reaching #1794 nationally. Today it ranks #6838, 5,044 places below that high. See the whole 1976 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From sakina to Sakinah
The story of Sakinah
Semitic languages share a great deal of vocabulary, and the religious terms are among the most closely shared: Arabic salaam and Hebrew shalom, Arabic din and Hebrew din, Arabic sakina and Hebrew shekhinah. The last pair is particularly close in sense as well as in form, both naming a divine presence that settles rather than a quality of a person. The word appears several times in the Quran, and the name is used across the Muslim world. Sakinah entered United States records with African American Muslim naming in the twentieth century and had its best year in 1976.
Meaning
tranquility, divine presence
Arabic sakina, from the root s-k-n, to be still or to dwell; the same root gives sakan, a dwelling, and maskan, a residence. In the Quran the word names a peace that God sends down upon the believers. Hebrew shekhinah, from the cognate root sh-k-n, names the indwelling presence of God, and the two concepts are historically related.
How the name formed
- sakina
- Sakinah
Related forms: Sakina · Sakina · Sekine · Shekhinah
Pronouncing Sakinah
sah-KEE-nah
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. The final h marks the Arabic feminine ending rather than a sound, exactly as in Samiah and Fatimah.
Nicknames for Sakinah
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
- 198038 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1794reached in 1976
- Change vs 2024
- +77.8%16 in 2025, from 9
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.
Sakinah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Sakina in Arabic — transliteration
- Sakina in Urdu — same name
- Sekine in Turkish — same name
- Shekhinah in Hebrew — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Minnesota.
Sakinahs among us
people named Sakinah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 100,454 born in 2025 was named Sakinah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Sakinah
- #6838
- Sakinah on the 2025 chart
- #885
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Sakinah went to 16 girls in 2025, but Sakina is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 75, which makes it the 885th most-given girls’ name of the year — 5,953 places above the chart.
- Sakina59
- Sakinah16
About 1 girl in 21,430 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 100,454 for Sakinah 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 Genny test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Sakinah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Genny climbed just as high around 1959, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Genny's path sketches the road Sakinah is walking now.
Sakinah 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
Sakinah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Sakinah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled Arabic meaning with genuine theological weight.
- Shares a root and a concept with a major Jewish theological term.
- Simple vowels throughout, so English speakers manage it at once.
- Sakina and Sakinah both circulate as transliterations.
- The front clip coincides with a Japanese drink in English ears.
- Outside Muslim communities it is unfamiliar in America.
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Sakinah
Feminine · #6838 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Sakinahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,000 people named Sakinah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Sakinah?
- Sakinah is one of 2 recorded spellings. Sakina is the more common one — 59 births in 2025 against 16 for Sakinah.
- How popular is the name Sakinah in 2025?
- Sakinah ranks #6838 among US girl names in 2025, with 16 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Sakinah?
- About 1 in every 100,454 US girls born in 2025 was named Sakinah — 16 in all.
- Will my child share the name Sakinah with classmates?
- Sakinah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Sakinah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Malana#6838 · Jeannie#6838 · Maxie#6838 · Nicol#6838 · Chaney#6838 · Keana#6838 · Concetta#6838 · Pheobe#6838
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Sakinah? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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