Savanna
Feminine · “open grassland”
Savanna is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 32,974 girls against 15 boys since 1880.
Savanna is one of the few English given names that traces back to a Caribbean language: the Taíno word for an open, treeless plain, carried into Spanish and then into English by sailors and chroniclers. Four syllables' worth of geography, said in three — suh-VAN-uh — with the soft ending it shares with Anna and Hannah. It reached the American name charts long before it became fashionable, and has been quietly on the books ever since.
How old is the name Savanna?
Savanna first appears in US birth records in 1916 — 109 years ago. The typical Savanna alive today was born around 2003, making them about 22 years old. About 32,500 people named Savanna are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Savanna most popular?
Savanna peaked in 2000, reaching #210 nationally. Today it ranks #1085, 875 places below that high. See the whole 2000 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From zabana (Taíno) to Savanna
The story of Savanna
The word began with the Taíno people of the Caribbean and was written down by Spanish colonists in the early sixteenth century as sabana, describing the wide grassy country they found there. English took it up as savanna or savannah, and by the eighteenth century it had become a standard geographic term for tropical grassland. The Savannah River, and the Georgia city named for it, planted the word firmly in American English as a proper name as well as a common one, which is how it crossed over into use for people. Savanna is the spelling that stays closest to the plain word, without the final h the city carries.
Meaning
open grassland; treeless plain
The English word savanna comes from Spanish sabana, borrowed in turn from zabana in Taíno, the Arawakan language of the Greater Antilles.
How the name formed
- zabanaTaíno
- sabanaSpanish
- savannaEnglish
- Savanna
Related forms: Savannah · Savana · Sabana
Pronouncing Savanna
suh-VAN-uh
Stress falls on the middle syllable. The one-h spelling is said exactly like Savannah — the h at the end never made a sound.
Nicknames for Savanna
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
- 1916
- Most girls named
- 20061,502 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #210reached in 2000
- Change vs 2024
- −12.6%222 in 2025, from 254
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.
Savanna in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Savannah in English — spelling variant
- Savana in English — spelling variant
- Sabana in Spanish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Savannas among us
people named Savanna are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 7,240 born in 2025 was named Savanna
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Savanna
- #1085
- Savanna on the 2025 chart
- #123
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Savanna went to 222 girls in 2025, but Savannah, Savana 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 — 962 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 668 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 7,240 for Savanna 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 Patrice test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Savanna's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Patrice climbed just as high around 1958, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Patrice's path sketches the road Savanna is walking now.
Savanna 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 Savanna is headed
Savanna is easing off slowly — about 23% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
Medium 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.
Savanna beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Savanna in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Says itself: an ordinary English word, so almost no American reader will hesitate over how to pronounce it.
- Several ready-made short forms already in use — Sav, Savvy, Vanna — none of which need explaining.
- Documented in American use across many generations, so it is familiar to every age group rather than newly coined.
- Sits in the same soft three-syllable family as Anna, Hannah and Susanna, which makes it easy to pair with most surnames.
- Savannah, with the h, is by far the better-known spelling in the United States. Expect the extra letter to be added by strangers, teachers and forms for life — a small, permanent correction rather than a real problem.
- The name carries a strong sense of place: the Georgia city, and the grassland itself. Some families like that; others find it reads more like a location than a person.
- It is best represented among adults now rather than among small children, so a girl named Savanna today is likelier to share the name with grown women than with a classmate.
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What they receive
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Savanna
Feminine · #1085 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Savannas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 32,500 people named Savanna are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Savanna?
- Savanna is one of 4 recorded spellings. Savannah is the more common one — 2,141 births in 2025 against 222 for Savanna.
- How popular is the name Savanna in 2025?
- Savanna ranks #1085 among US girl names in 2025, with 222 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Savanna?
- About 1 in every 7,240 US girls born in 2025 was named Savanna — 222 in all.
- Will my child share the name Savanna with classmates?
- Savanna will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Savanna
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Ira#1085 · Joan#1085 · Laramie#1085 · Saoirse#1085 · Susan#1085 · Arlett#1085 · Carla#1082 · Aira#1082
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Savanna? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Savanna and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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