Salvatore
Masculine · Latin roots · “savior”
Salvatore is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 57,364 boys against 81 girls since 1880.
Salvatore is the Italian form of a word Christian Latin writers built on purpose: salvator, the one who saves. It has four syllables that run downhill and land on an open vowel, and it arrived in American records with the great wave of Italian migration, which is why it still sits most thickly in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. It has never disappeared from the charts since it first appeared there.
How old is the name Salvatore?
Salvatore first appears in US birth records in 1888 — 137 years ago. The typical Salvatore alive today was born around 1951, making them about 74 years old. About 29,500 people named Salvatore are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Salvatore most popular?
Salvatore peaked in 1914, reaching #148 nationally. Today it ranks #943, 795 places below that high. See the whole 1914 chart.
Salvatore appears on these lists:
- Four-syllable names that carry
- Nine-letter names, the long end of the chart
- Italian names Americans adore
- Fashion house names in the records
- all guides
Works in Italian families too:
Where it comes from
From salvare (Latin, 'to save') to Salvatore
The story of Salvatore
Latin had no ordinary word for 'savior' until Christian writers made one: salvator, from salvare, to save, standing in for the Greek sōtēr used of Christ in the Gospels. In Italy the title became a personal name, given in devotion to the Holy Savior, and it took deepest root in the south and in Sicily, where whole families named a son Salvatore generation after generation. Italian emigrants carried it to the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and it entered the American charts in that same period. The regional pattern it still shows — the northeastern industrial states — is the map of that migration.
Meaning
savior
From Late Latin salvator, formed on salvare, 'to save' — coined by Christian Latin writers to render the Greek sōtēr, a title of Christ.
How the name formed
- salvareLatin, 'to save'
- SalvatorLate Latin
- SalvatoreItalian
- SalvadorSpanish and Portuguese
Related forms: Salvador · Salvador · Salvador · Sauveur · Salvator · Turiddu
Pronouncing Salvatore
sal-vuh-TOR-ay
The Italian pronunciation sounds all four syllables and ends on -ay. In American English many bearers use SAL-vuh-tor, with a silent-sounding final e, and both are heard in the same families.
Nicknames for Salvatore
High
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
- 1888
- Most boys named
- 19231,017 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #148reached in 1914
- Change vs 2022
- −7.4%249 in 2025, from 269
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.
Salvatore in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Salvador in Spanish — same name
- Salvador in Portuguese — same name
- Salvador in Catalan — same name
- Sauveur in French — same name
- Salvator in Latin — same name
- Turiddu in Sicilian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania.
Salvatores among us
people named Salvatore are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 6,860 born in 2025 was named Salvatore
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Salvatore 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 Salvatore is headed
Salvatore 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.
Salvatore beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Salvatore in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Sal is an immediate, universally understood short form, so the full name never has to be used in a hurry.
- The meaning is settled and needs no explanation: savior, from Latin salvare.
- It travels: Salvador in Spanish and Portuguese, Sauveur in French, all built from the same Latin word.
- On the American charts without a break since the era of Italian migration — long familiar, and never everywhere at once.
- Four syllables and an ending that most Americans will guess at. Expect to correct people between the Italian -ay and the flattened -tor, or to settle on Sal and let the full name live on paperwork.
- The name reads as distinctly Italian and Catholic in origin, which many families want and others may find carries more heritage than they intend.
- Most Salvatores alive in the US today are of grandparent age or older, so a child will meet the name mainly on adults before he meets it on classmates.
- Outside the Northeast it is much less familiar, so its automatic recognition depends somewhat on where you live.
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What they receive
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Salvatore
Masculine · Latin roots · #943 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Salvatores are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 29,500 people named Salvatore are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Salvatore in 2025?
- Salvatore ranks #943 among US boy names in 2025, with 249 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Salvatore?
- About 1 in every 6,860 US boys born in 2025 was named Salvatore — 249 in all.
- Will my child share the name Salvatore with classmates?
- Salvatore will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Salvatore
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Kenji#943 · Eugene#943 · Zymir#943 · Zyon#943 · Khalid#940 · Rowdy#940 · Veer#940 · Ricky#948
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Salvatore? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Salvatore and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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