Sarai
Feminine · “my princess”
Sarai is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 22,919 girls against 6 boys since 1880.
Sarai is the name Abraham's wife carries through the first sixteen chapters of Genesis, before God renames her Sarah — which makes it one of the oldest names in continuous use in any Western language, and one of the few that the Hebrew Bible itself pauses to discuss. In English it has never been common enough to blur into the crowd, and it is strongest in states with deep Spanish-speaking communities, where Saraí has long been at home.
How old is the name Sarai?
Sarai first appears in US birth records in 1953 — 72 years ago. The typical Sarai alive today was born around 2010, making them about 15 years old. About 22,500 people named Sarai are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Sarai most popular?
Sarai peaked in 2007, reaching #398 nationally. Today it ranks #424, 26 places below that high. See the whole 2007 chart.
Where it comes from
From Sarai to Sarai
The story of Sarai
The name is Hebrew and reaches English through the Bible: Sarai is Abraham's wife in Genesis until the covenant chapter, where she becomes Sarah. The Greek translators of the Hebrew Bible flattened both forms into Sarra, and Latin and English followed with Sara and Sarah, so for most of Christian history the earlier spelling survived only inside the text. It came back as a given name in its own right much later — carried especially by Spanish-speaking families as Saraí, and by English-speaking Protestant and evangelical families drawn to biblical names beyond the familiar few. That double route is why it turns up today in both accent-marked and plain forms.
Meaningscholars disagree
my princess, or noblewoman
The traditional reading takes the Hebrew element sar, 'prince, chieftain, noble', with a possessive ending: 'my princess'. Many Semitic scholars instead treat Sarai and Sarah as two dialect forms of one word meaning 'noblewoman, princess', with no real difference in sense between them — which is why the renaming in Genesis is read as a change of form rather than of meaning.
How the name formed
- Sarai
- Sarra
- Sara
- Sarah
Related forms: Saraí · Saray · Sarah · Sara · Sarra · Sarai
Pronouncing Sarai
sah-RYE
Three main pronunciations are all in real use: sah-RYE and SAIR-eye in English, and sah-rah-EE in Spanish, where the accented Saraí makes the stress explicit. None is wrong; the family simply has to pick one and repeat it.
Nicknames for Sarai
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
- 1953
- Most girls named
- 2007818 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #398reached in 2007
- Change vs 2024
- +4.4%733 in 2025, from 702
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.
Sarai in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Saraí in Spanish — spelling variant
- Saray in Hebrew — transliteration
- Sarah in English — related form
- Sara in Italian — related form
- Sarra in Greek (Septuagint) — related form
- Sarai in Portuguese — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Sarais among us
people named Sarai are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 2,193 born in 2025 was named Sarai
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 Kristal test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Sarai's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Kristal climbed just as high around 1982, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Kristal's path sketches the road Sarai is walking now.
Sarai 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 Sarai is headed
Sarai 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.
Sarai beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Sarai in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Documented in the Hebrew Bible and in continuous scholarly discussion since antiquity — a record almost no modern name can match.
- Works without adjustment in English and Spanish, and the accented Saraí is instantly readable to Spanish speakers.
- Every letter is one people already know from Sarah and Sara, so it is spelled correctly on the first try more often than most uncommon names.
- Comes with ready-made short forms — Sara, Sari, Sarita — that all stand on their own.
- Uncommon enough that a child is unlikely to share it with a classmate, without being unfamiliar to adults.
- It will be heard as Sarah constantly, and corrected constantly — in roll calls, on forms, by teachers who read it fast. The two names are genuinely related, which makes the slip easy and permanent.
- There is no single agreed pronunciation. A child growing up between English- and Spanish-speaking relatives may answer to sah-RYE at school and sah-rah-EE at home, which some families find charming and others tiring.
- In Genesis, Sarai is the name given up rather than the name received. Most people never think about this; a few readers of scripture will, and it is worth knowing the point exists before someone raises it.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Sarai
Feminine · #424 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Sarais are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 22,500 people named Sarai are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Sarai in 2025?
- Sarai ranks #424 among US girl names in 2025, with 733 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Sarai?
- About 1 in every 2,193 US girls born in 2025 was named Sarai — 733 in all.
- Will my child share the name Sarai with classmates?
- Sarai will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Sarai
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Marceline#424 · Opal#423 · Winter#426 · Willa#422 · Veronica#427 · Dorothy#421 · Trinity#428 · Melissa#419
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Sarai? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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