Sarafina
Feminine · “burning one”
Sarafina is a respelling of Serafina, and the word behind it names the highest order of angels — the burning ones, six-winged, who in Isaiah cover their faces before God. The Hebrew root means to burn. The name is Italian and Spanish, and its American peak in 1993 sits a year after a South African musical of the same name reached international audiences.
How old is the name Sarafina?
Sarafina first appears in US birth records in 1914 — 111 years ago. The typical Sarafina alive today was born around 2005, making them about 20 years old. About 700 people named Sarafina are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Sarafina most popular?
Sarafina peaked in 1993, reaching #2725 nationally. Today it ranks #5917, 3,192 places below that high. See the whole 1993 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From saraph to Sarafina
The story of Sarafina
Saint Serafina, a thirteenth-century girl of San Gimignano in Tuscany, is the reason the name became ordinary in Italy; her cult is local but old, and the town keeps it. Spanish and Portuguese use Serafina too. American records show the name with Italian migration in the early twentieth century, quietly. Its 1993 peak has a different cause: Sarafina!, a musical about the Soweto uprising that ran on Broadway from 1988 and was filmed in 1992 with Whoopi Goldberg and Miriam Makeba, made this exact spelling internationally visible, and the American birth record responds in the years immediately after.
Meaning
burning one; of the seraphim
Hebrew saraph means to burn, and the seraphim of Isaiah 6 are the burning ones — the plural -im ending is what English has kept in seraphim. Late Latin formed Seraphinus and Seraphina from the plural noun, so the name means something like 'belonging to the seraphim'. The derivation is settled. The a in the first syllable of this spelling is an American respelling of the e, aligning the name visually with Sara.
How the name formed
- saraph
- seraphim
- Seraphina
- Sarafina
Related forms: Serafina · Serafina · Seraphina · Serafina
Pronouncing Sarafina
sah-rah-FEE-nah
Four syllables, stress on the third, with open vowels throughout. English speakers say sair-uh-FEE-nuh, reducing the middle vowels, which is understood everywhere and is the usual American version.
Nicknames for Sarafina
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
- 1914
- Most girls named
- 199344 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2725reached in 1993
- Change vs 2024
- +25.0%20 in 2025, from 16
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.
Sarafina in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Serafina in Italian — related form
- Serafina in Spanish — related form
- Seraphina in English — related form
- Serafina in Polish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California.
Sarafinas among us
people named Sarafina are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 80,363 born in 2025 was named Sarafina
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Sarafina
- #5917
- Sarafina on the 2025 chart
- #922
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Sarafina went to 20 girls in 2025, but Saraphina is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 38, which makes it the 922nd most-given girls’ name of the year — 4,995 places above the chart.
- Sarafina20
- Saraphina18
About 1 girl in 42,297 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 80,363 for Sarafina 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 Derenda test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Sarafina's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Derenda climbed just as high around 1956, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Derenda's path sketches the road Sarafina is walking now.
Sarafina 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
Sarafina beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Sarafina in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is vivid, biblical and expressible in three words.
- Sara and Fina are both complete names available as short forms.
- The a-spelling makes the connection to Sara visible on the page.
- Serafina and Seraphina are the older spellings and hers will be written as one of them.
- Four syllables is long for everyday use, so a short form is effectively required.
- The musical association is strong for anyone who remembers the early 1990s.
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What they receive
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Sarafina
Feminine · #5917 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Sarafinas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Sarafina are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Sarafina?
- Sarafina is the most-used spelling in US records — 20 of the 38 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Saraphina.
- How popular is the name Sarafina in 2025?
- Sarafina ranks #5917 among US girl names in 2025, with 20 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Sarafina?
- About 1 in every 80,363 US girls born in 2025 was named Sarafina — 20 in all.
- Will my child share the name Sarafina with classmates?
- Sarafina will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Sarafina
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Elda#5917 · Saloma#5917 · Fawn#5917 · Jaymie#5917 · Jania#5917 · Kimberlynn#5917 · Klarissa#5917 · Patsy#5917
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Sarafina? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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