Sasha
Masculine · “defender of men”
Sasha is given to both — 1,746 boys and 38,492 girls since 1880. See Sasha as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Sasha is what Russian speakers actually call an Alexander — not a formal name at all but the everyday one, used at home and in the street. It traveled out of Russian into English carrying that warmth with it, and unlike most short forms it long ago stopped needing the long name standing behind it.
How old is the name Sasha?
Sasha first appears in US birth records in 1964 — 61 years ago. The typical Sasha alive today was born around 2001, making them about 24 years old. About 1,700 people named Sasha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Sasha most popular?
Sasha peaked in 1976, reaching #1390 nationally. Today it ranks #2718, 1,328 places below that high. See the whole 1976 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Alexandros to Sasha
The story of Sasha
Russian makes affectionate forms by cutting a name down and adding a soft ending, and Aleksandr becomes Sasha the way Mikhail becomes Misha and Dmitri becomes Dima. Because Russian uses the same short form for Aleksandr and for Aleksandra, Sasha has always belonged to both — and that is genuinely one name traveling two ways rather than two names meeting by accident at a spelling. It spread west through emigration and through translated novels, where English readers met it as a character's real name and took it for one.
Meaning
defender of men — through Alexander
Sasha has no meaning of its own. It is a Russian pet form, built with the soft -sha ending the language uses to make a name affectionate. The sense belongs to Aleksandr, from Greek alexein, 'to defend', and aner, andros, 'man'.
How the name formed
- Alexandros
- Aleksandr
- Sasha
Related forms: Sasha · Saša · Sashko · Sasza · Alexander
Pronouncing Sasha
SAH-shuh
Two syllables with the stress on the first and a broad opening vowel. English speakers sometimes flatten it to SASH-uh; both are heard, and the Russian saying is the rounder one.
Nicknames for Sasha
Moderate
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
- 1964
- Most boys named
- 202460 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1390reached in 1976
- Change vs 2024
- −21.7%47 in 2025, from 60
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.
Sasha in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Sasha in Russian — transliteration
- Saša in Serbian — spelling variant
- Sashko in Ukrainian — related form
- Sasza in Polish — spelling variant
- Alexander in English — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, New York, Florida.
Sashas among us
people named Sasha are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 36,342 born in 2025 was named Sasha
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 Saburo test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Sasha's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Saburo climbed just as high around 1925, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Saburo's path sketches the road Sasha is walking now.
Sasha 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 Sasha is headed
Sasha looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 17% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds. 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.
Sasha beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Sasha in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Established for boys and girls alike in Russian, so it is not a name anyone has to defend as unusual.
- Short, easy in most European languages, and spelled the same way in nearly all of them.
- Alexander stands behind it as a full formal name whenever one is wanted.
- In English-speaking countries it is heard as a girl's name more often than a boy's, which is the reverse of the Russian street.
- It is a diminutive by origin, and some relatives will treat it as a nickname and reach for Alexander instead.
- The sh in the middle gets flattened by English mouths, so it will not always sound the way it does at home.
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What they receive
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Sasha
Masculine · #2718 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Sashas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,700 people named Sasha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Sasha in 2025?
- Sasha ranks #2718 among US boy names in 2025, with 47 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Sasha?
- About 1 in every 36,342 US boys born in 2025 was named Sasha — 47 in all.
- Will my child share the name Sasha with classmates?
- Sasha will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Sasha
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Einar#2718 · Kurtis#2718 · Jovany#2718 · Ahsan#2718 · Xavien#2718 · Yassin#2718 · Korey#2718 · Unknown#2718
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Sasha? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Sasha and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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