Savanah
Feminine · “open grassland”
Savanah is the third of three spellings dividing one sound, and its statistics show what that division costs. At its 1998 peak it stood near the American top five hundred — a genuinely popular name — while Savannah with two n's was inside the top thirty and Savanna sat between them. The same name, heard identically in every classroom, appears in the records as three separate and much smaller names.
How old is the name Savanah?
Savanah first appears in US birth records in 1884 — 141 years ago. The typical Savanah alive today was born around 2001, making them about 24 years old. About 9,600 people named Savanah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Savanah most popular?
Savanah peaked in 1998, reaching #495 nationally. Today it ranks #5722, 5,227 places below that high. See the whole 1998 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From zabana to Savanah
The story of Savanah
Spelling fragmentation is one of the most consequential and least visible facts about modern American naming, and this name is a clean case of it. A sound that would rank very high if counted as one name is split across three official spellings, each of which is ranked separately by the Social Security Administration, and the split makes every one of them look rarer than it is. The same thing happens to Kaylee, Aaliyah, Jayden and Madelyn. For a parent the practical effect runs the other way: the sound a child hears all day is common, and the spelling she has to give out is not. Savanah, with one n and no h, is the most economical of the three and the least often guessed.
Meaning
open grassland
The word is a Taino borrowing that Spanish chroniclers recorded on Hispaniola in the early sixteenth century, passed into Spanish as sabana and then into English. Savanah, Savanna and Savannah are the same word with different consonant counts; none of the spellings changes the sense. The Georgia city and the river before it carry the same word, which is how the noun became a proper noun and then a name.
How the name formed
- zabana
- sabana
- savanna
- Savanah
Related forms: Savannah · Savanna · Sabana
Pronouncing Savanah
suh-VAN-uh
Three syllables, stress in the middle. Identical to Savanna and Savannah — the three spellings are indistinguishable in speech, which is precisely why they fragment on paper.
Nicknames for Savanah
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
- 1884
- Most girls named
- 1997498 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #495reached in 1998
- Change vs 2023
- −63.2%21 in 2025, from 57
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.
Savanah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Savannah in English — spelling variant
- Savanna in English — spelling variant
- Sabana in Spanish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, New York, Texas.
Savanahs among us
people named Savanah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 76,537 born in 2025 was named Savanah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Savanah
- #5722
- Savanah on the 2025 chart
- #123
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Savanah went to 21 girls in 2025, but Savannah, Savanna and Savana 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 Savanah 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 Salina test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Savanah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Salina climbed just as high around 1977, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Salina's path sketches the road Savanah is walking now.
Savanah 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
Savanah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Savanah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is the shortest of the three spellings and the quickest to write.
- The word behind it has a concrete meaning documented from first contact.
- The sound is familiar to everyone, so only the spelling needs explaining.
- Two other spellings are far more common and hers will be assumed to be one of them.
- Autocorrect and spellcheck both change it to Savannah.
- The name's popularity curve is firmly late-1990s, which places a bearer's generation.
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Savanah
Feminine · #5722 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Savanahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 9,600 people named Savanah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Savanah?
- Savanah is one of 4 recorded spellings. Savannah is the more common one — 2,141 births in 2025 against 21 for Savanah.
- How popular is the name Savanah in 2025?
- Savanah ranks #5722 among US girl names in 2025, with 21 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Savanah?
- About 1 in every 76,537 US girls born in 2025 was named Savanah — 21 in all.
- Will my child share the name Savanah with classmates?
- Savanah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Savanah
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 Savanah? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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