Samantha
Feminine
Samantha is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 592,847 girls against 1,205 boys since 1880. See Samantha as a boy name
Samantha appears in American records before anybody can explain it and stays rare for two centuries. Then a television series about a suburban housewife who was secretly a witch put it on screen every week, and within four years it was one of the fastest-rising names in the country.
How old is the name Samantha?
Samantha was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Samantha alive today was born around 1995, making them about 30 years old. About 581,000 people named Samantha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Samantha most popular?
Samantha peaked in 1998, reaching #3 nationally. Today it ranks #151, 148 places below that high. See the whole 1998 chart.
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Samantha
The program ran through the middle of the nineteen-sixties and the name went with it, which is one of the cleanest examples in the record of a single show moving a name. Two decades later a different Samantha did something that had nothing to do with television. A ten-year-old in Maine, worried about nuclear war, wrote to the new Soviet leader asking whether he was going to start one; he wrote back, at length, and invited her to visit. She went, spent two weeks in the country, was on the news constantly in both places, and became for a short time the most visible child in the world. She died in a plane crash at thirteen. A monument to her stands in Maine and another was raised in Moscow.
Meaningnot established
Not established
No source has ever been established. It is often given as a feminine of Samuel with an ending borrowed from somewhere, and that is a guess rather than a finding; the ending does not correspond to any known feminising suffix in English. The name simply appears, mostly in New England and the South, and nobody wrote down what they meant by it.
Cultural footprint
Samantha Smith (b. 1972) — The 10-year-old whose letter to the Soviet leader made her a peace icon
Samantha Cristoforetti (b. 1977) — Record-setting astronaut
Source: Wikidata — the one source on this page that is not an official agency.
Pronouncing Samantha
suh-MAN-thuh
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. The th is the unvoiced one, as in thin; some speakers voice it, which is a regional habit rather than a mistake.
Nicknames for Samantha
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
- 1964 — Bewitched premieres
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 198924,792 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3reached in 1998
- Change vs 2022
- −24.3%1,973 in 2025, from 2,605
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.
Samantha in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Samantha in Italian — same name
- Samanta in Spanish — same name
- Samantha in French — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Samanthas among us
people named Samantha are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 815 born in 2025 was named Samantha
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Patricia test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Samantha's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Patricia climbed just as high around 1937, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Patricia's path sketches the road Samantha is walking now.
Samantha is coming down from a big peak (#3 in 1998). This is the stretch of the cycle where a name starts to sound like the decade it ruled.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Samantha is headed
Samantha 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.
Samantha beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Samantha in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The name is completely established across the English-speaking world and beyond.
- Sam is a short, plain, adult everyday form available from the first day.
- It is spelled the same way in Italian, French and Spanish.
- The record carries it for boys in small numbers, so it is not quite an absolute signal.
- There is no meaning to give a child, which surprises people who assume every name has one.
- It is closely associated with one television character for anyone over a certain age.
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What they receive
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Samantha
Feminine · #151 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Samanthas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 581,000 people named Samantha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Samantha in 2025?
- Samantha ranks #151 among US girl names in 2025, with 1,973 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Samantha?
- About 1 in every 815 US girls born in 2025 was named Samantha — 1,973 in all.
- Will my child share the name Samantha with classmates?
- Samantha will almost certainly be the only one in school.
- What explains the spikes and dips on Samantha's chart?
- Samantha climbed after 1964 — Bewitched premieres.
Ranked beside Samantha
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Summer#151 · June#150 · Oaklynn#153 · Kehlani#148 · Ember#154 · Genevieve#148 · Evangeline#147 · Piper#155
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Samantha? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Samantha and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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