Savana
Feminine · “open grassland”
Savana carries one of the few Taino words that survived into English. The savanna is a Caribbean word for open grassland that Spanish took from the indigenous people of Hispaniola and passed on; the Georgia city took its name from the same source, and the name Savannah followed the city. Savana is the spelling that keeps one n and drops the h, and it was near the American top seven hundred at the turn of the millennium.
How old is the name Savana?
Savana first appears in US birth records in 1911 — 114 years ago. The typical Savana alive today was born around 2003, making them about 22 years old. About 5,400 people named Savana are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Savana most popular?
Savana peaked in 2000, reaching #731 nationally. Today it ranks #5722, 4,991 places below that high. See the whole 2000 chart.
Where it comes from
From zabana to Savana
The story of Savana
Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo, writing about Hispaniola in the 1530s, records zabana as the Taino word for open, treeless country. Spanish carried the word through the Caribbean and into Florida and the Gulf coast, and English took it from Spanish. The Savannah River and then the Georgia city of Savannah, founded in 1733, made it a proper noun in North America. The given name is a twentieth-century development that accelerated sharply in the 1980s and 1990s, helped by the visibility of the city and by a general American taste for place names on girls. Savana, Savanna and Savannah then divided the same sound between them.
Meaning
open grassland
The word is one of a small handful of Taino borrowings in English, alongside hurricane, hammock, canoe, barbecue and maize. Taino zabana was recorded by Spanish chroniclers in the early sixteenth century as the local word for a treeless plain; Spanish took it as sabana, and English as savanna and later savannah. The etymology is unusually well documented for a word of that age, because the Spanish wrote it down at first contact.
How the name formed
- zabana
- sabana
- savanna
- Savana
Related forms: Sabana · Savannah · Savanna
Pronouncing Savana
suh-VAN-uh
Three syllables, stress in the middle, exactly as the ordinary word savanna. The single n does not shorten anything. There is no competing saying.
Nicknames for Savana
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
- 1911
- Most girls named
- 2000317 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #731reached in 2000
- Change vs 2024
- −22.2%21 in 2025, from 27
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.
Savana in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Sabana in Spanish — related form
- Savannah in English — spelling variant
- Savanna in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Savanas among us
people named Savana are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 76,537 born in 2025 was named Savana
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Savana
- #5722
- Savana on the 2025 chart
- #123
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Savana went to 21 girls in 2025, but Savannah, Savanna and Savanah are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 2,405, which makes it the 123rd most-given girls’ name of the year — 5,599 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 668 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 76,537 for Savana 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 Elayne test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Savana's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Elayne climbed just as high around 1924, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Elayne's path sketches the road Savana is walking now.
Savana 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
Savana beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Savana in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is concrete, visual and genuinely documented from first contact.
- Sav and Savvy are ready-made short forms already in circulation.
- The shorter spelling is easier to write than Savannah while sounding identical.
- Three spellings share the sound, and Savannah is far the most common, so hers will be assumed.
- It will be corrected to Savannah on forms and by autocorrect.
- The name's popularity curve is distinctly late-1990s, which dates a bearer.
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What they receive
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Savana
Feminine · #5722 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Savanas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 5,400 people named Savana are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Savana?
- Savana is one of 4 recorded spellings. Savannah is the more common one — 2,141 births in 2025 against 21 for Savana.
- How popular is the name Savana in 2025?
- Savana ranks #5722 among US girl names in 2025, with 21 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Savana?
- About 1 in every 76,537 US girls born in 2025 was named Savana — 21 in all.
- Will my child share the name Savana with classmates?
- Savana will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Savana
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Rosina#5722 · Delores#5722 · Vaughn#5722 · Roseline#5722 · Loyal#5722 · Missy#5722 · Danitza#5722 · Margret#5722
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Savana? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Savana and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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