Sarah
Masculine · “princess”
Sarah is given to girls far more often — 1,098,498 girls against 3,340 boys since 1880. See Sarah as a girl 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 first appears in US birth records in 1883 — 142 years ago. The typical Sarah alive today was born around 1980, making them about 45 years old. About 2,400 people named Sarah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Sarah most popular?
Sarah peaked in 1899, reaching #613 nationally. See the whole 1899 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
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.
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
- 1883
- Most boys named
- 1983118 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #613reached in 1899
- Change vs 2015
- −10.0%9 in 2020, from 10
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
Sarahs among us
people named Sarah are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Sarah sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
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.
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Sarah
Masculine
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 2,400 people named Sarah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Sarah in 2025?
- Sarah is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Sarah with classmates?
- Sarah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More S names
The most-given names starting with S, all years combined.
Steven#271 · Stephen#383 · Samuel#18 · Scott#534 · Sean#489 · Shawn#681 · Stanley#863 · Steve#1609
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. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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