Sarah
Feminine · “princess”
Sarah is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 1,098,498 girls against 3,340 boys since 1880. See Sarah as a boy name
Sarah splits the world in half at a single letter. English-speaking countries write it with an h; most of continental Europe writes it without. Both are ancient, both are correct, and between them they make one of the oldest continuously used names on earth.
How old is the name Sarah?
Sarah was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Sarah alive today was born around 1984, making them about 41 years old. About 895,000 people named Sarah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Sarah most popular?
Sarah peaked in 1993, reaching #3 nationally. Today it ranks #90, 87 places below that high. See the whole 1993 chart.
Where it comes from
From Sarai to Sarah
The story of Sarah
The first piece of land anyone in the Bible buys is bought to bury her. When Sarah dies at Hebron, Abraham — who has been promised the whole country and owns none of it — approaches the local landowners and asks to purchase a burial cave. They offer it to him as a gift; he refuses, insists on paying, and the text records the price and the witnesses in the manner of a legal document, because the point of the passage is that the transaction was unimpeachable. The cave of Machpelah is still there, still contested, and still visited. It is the only property in Genesis that anyone actually owns.
Meaning
princess, noblewoman
The Hebrew is a title rather than a description, and it was given as a replacement for an earlier name. The reading has never been seriously disputed.
Cultural footprint
Sarah Bernhardt (b. 1844) — The world's first international superstar actress
Sarah Jessica Parker (b. 1965) — Sex and the City's Carrie Bradshaw
Sarah Michelle Gellar (b. 1977) — Buffy the Vampire Slayer herself
Source: Wikidata — the one source on this page that is not an official agency.
How the name formed
- Sarai
- Sarah
Related forms: Sara · Sara · Sara · Sarah · Sara · Sorcha
Pronouncing Sarah
SAIR-uh
Two syllables with the weight at the front. Continental Europe says SAH-rah, with the vowel of father, and the h-less spelling is the usual one there.
Nicknames for Sarah
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
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 198128,175 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3reached in 1993
- Change vs 2022
- −3.5%2,710 in 2025, from 2,809
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.
Sarah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Sara in Hebrew — transliteration
- Sara in Spanish — spelling variant
- Sara in Italian — spelling variant
- Sarah in Arabic — same name
- Sara in Polish — spelling variant
- Sorcha in Irish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York, California, Texas. INSEE rounds every published count to the nearest five for statistical confidentiality; the ranks are calculated from the exact figures. International figures from Statistics Canada, INSEE. Sources
Sarahs among us
people named Sarah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 593 born in 2025 was named Sarah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Sarah
- #90
- Sarah on the 2025 chart
- #56
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Sarah went to 2,710 girls in 2025, but Sara is the same name said out loud. Together the 6 spellings went to 4,312, which makes it the 56th most-given girls’ name of the year — 34 places above the chart.
- Sarah2,710
- Sara1,568
and 4 rarer spellings.
About 1 girl in 373 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 593 for Sarah 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 Patricia test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Sarah'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 Sarah is walking now.
Sarah has held the top-100 across 14 different decades — it has never depended on fashion, and names like that read the same at any age.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Sarah is headed
Sarah 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.
Sarah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Sarah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is recognized in Jewish, Christian and Muslim tradition alike, which almost no other name manages.
- It has a form in every European language and in Arabic and Hebrew.
- The meaning is short, settled and easy to explain to a child.
- It has an unbroken run in American records from the first year they were kept and a documented history thousands of years longer.
- Sara without the h is equally correct and will be written for you constantly.
- It is extremely common across several generations, so a child may share it with others.
- The spelling is recorded for a small number of boys, though it reads overwhelmingly as a girl's name.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Sarah
Feminine · #90 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Sarahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 895,000 people named Sarah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Sarah?
- Sarah is the most-used spelling in US records — 2,710 of the 4,312 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Sara.
- How popular is the name Sarah in 2025?
- Sarah ranks #90 among US girl names in 2025, with 2,710 babies given the name.
- How common is the name Sarah?
- About 1 in every 593 US girls born in 2025 was named Sarah — 2,710 in all.
- Will my child share the name Sarah with classmates?
- Sarah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Sarah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Natalie#89 · Everly#91 · Lydia#92 · Autumn#88 · Maria#87 · Kinsley#93 · Audrey#86 · Sienna#94
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Sarah? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Sarah and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration; international figures from national statistics agencies. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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