Saroya
Feminine · “Usually read as a form of Soraya”
Behind Saroya stands one of the oldest names people have given each other: Arabic Thurayya, the Pleiades, that small huddle of stars visible on a clear winter night. Through Persian it became Soraya, and through Spanish and Portuguese it traveled west; Saroya is that name with two letters turned around. The sound stays soft in the mouth either way — three syllables that open and close on a vowel.
How old is the name Saroya?
Saroya first appears in US birth records in 1961 — 64 years ago. Saroya is overwhelmingly a brand-new baby name right now — most Saroyas are still in diapers. About 300 people named Saroya are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Saroya most popular?
Saroya peaked in 2025, reaching #1493 nationally. Today it ranks #1493, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Thurayya to Saroya
The story of Saroya
Thurayya is the Arabic name for the Pleiades, and it has been a woman's name in Arabic since the early Islamic centuries, carried into Persian as Soraya and into Turkish as Süreyya. Persian and Andalusian poetry kept the star image alive, and Muslim Spain passed Soraya into Spanish and Portuguese, where it is still a normal name today. In the 1950s Soraya, Queen of Iran, put the name into Western newspapers and magazines on a scale it had never had before, and American records begin to show scattered variant spellings not long after. Saroya is one of them — the same name with the r and the first vowel exchanged, a small shuffle of the kind that happens whenever a name crosses into a language that has not heard it before.
Meaningscholars disagree
Usually read as a form of Soraya — the Pleiades star cluster
The mainstream reading takes Saroya as a respelling of Soraya, from Arabic Thurayya, the name of the Pleiades and a diminutive tied to the root for abundance. But Saroya's own letter order is not documented as a word in any language, so some families treat it as its own spelling rather than a variant, and it sits close in sound to Sara and to the Armenian surname Saroyan. The star reading is the strongest; it is not the only one in circulation.
How the name formed
- Thurayya
- Soraya
- Soraia
- Saroya
Related forms: Thurayya · Soraya · Soraya · Süreyya · Soraia · Soraya
Pronouncing Saroya
suh-ROY-uh
Also said sah-ROH-yah, closer to the Persian Soraya. Both are in use in the US, so it is worth deciding early which one you will correct people toward.
Nicknames for Saroya
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
- 1961
- Most girls named
- 2025143 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1493reached in 2025
- Change vs 2024
- +240.5%143 in 2025, from 42
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.
Saroya in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Thurayya in Arabic — transliteration
- Soraya in Persian — same name
- Soraya in Spanish — same name
- Süreyya in Turkish — related form
- Soraia in Portuguese — spelling variant
- Soraya in French — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: Georgia, Texas, Ohio.
Saroyas among us
people named Saroya are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 11,240 born in 2025 was named Saroya
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 Angelene test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Saroya's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Angelene climbed just as high around 1937, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Angelene's path sketches the road Saroya is walking now.
Saroya is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Saroya is headed
Saroya is on a steep climb — if the curve holds, 2030 could see around 226% more babies given the name than today. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low 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.
Saroya beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Saroya in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Rides on a name people already half-know: Soraya is familiar in Spanish, Portuguese, Persian, Arabic and Turkish-speaking communities.
- A documented history stretching back centuries in Arabic and Persian, rather than a spelling invented last decade.
- Three syllables ending in -a, the same shape as Maya, Amaya and Amelia, so it fits easily into English rhythm.
- Several natural short forms — Sari, Roya, Saro — including one that works as a full name elsewhere.
- It will be corrected to Soraya, which is the older and more widespread spelling. Expect to spell it out often, and to see the letters swapped back on forms, class lists and coffee cups.
- Two pronunciations circulate — suh-ROY-uh and sah-ROH-yah — so she will introduce herself with a small correction fairly often.
- Almost everyone carrying this exact spelling in the US is a young child, so there is no established grown-up Saroya nearby to make it familiar to teachers and neighbors. That settles quickly once people have met one.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Saroya to the vote.
Add it to a family vote or a couple’s swipe deck — the other person gets one card, a simple answer and room to say why. No app, no account for them.
Only the people you invite can see your list.
Already decided on Saroya? Hide it among decoys and let them guess.
What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Saroya
Feminine · #1493 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Saroyas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 300 people named Saroya are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Saroya in 2025?
- Saroya ranks #1493 among US girl names in 2025, with 143 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Saroya?
- About 1 in every 11,240 US girls born in 2025 was named Saroya — 143 in all.
- Will my child share the name Saroya with classmates?
- Saroya will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Saroya
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Roma#1493 · Zayna#1493 · Yashna#1493 · Memphis#1493 · Alyana#1493 · Nyari#1493 · Jenny#1500 · Zhuri#1500
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Saroya? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Saroya and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
Compare side by sideIn a hurry? Just pick a winner — one tap, no sign-up, and you see how everyone else voted.
Weighing a whole shortlist? Add the rest in the builder, or settle it with a bracket.
Cast your vote
Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
No advertising trackers and no data sellinghow we handle your dataindependent and founder-run, about Name Battle