Savannah
Feminine · “open grassland”
Savannah is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 191,514 girls against 222 boys since 1880.
Savannah is the name of a Georgia city laid out on a river bluff in 1733, and before that an English word for open grassland that Spanish sailors first picked up in the Caribbean. Say it and the middle syllable takes the weight, with the ending trailing off soft. Few names manage to be a place on the map, a word in the dictionary, and a steady presence in American classrooms all at once.
How old is the name Savannah?
Savannah was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Savannah alive today was born around 2007, making them about 18 years old. About 187,000 people named Savannah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Savannah most popular?
Savannah peaked in 2006, reaching #30 nationally. Today it ranks #135, 105 places below that high. See the whole 2006 chart.
Where it comes from
From zabana (Taíno) to Savannah
The story of Savannah
The word came before the name. Spanish chroniclers in the Caribbean took zabana from the Taíno for flat, treeless grassland, and it traveled into Spanish as sabana and into English as savanna. In the American Southeast the Savannah River carried the name, and in 1733 James Oglethorpe laid out the city of Savannah on its bluff as the first town of the Georgia colony. From city to girl's name is a short step in the long American habit of naming daughters after places, and Savannah took it in the later twentieth century — which is why so many of the women who carry it are still in their teens and twenties.
Meaningscholars disagree
open grassland — or the name English colonists used for the Shawnee people
Two routes compete. One runs through the word: Taíno zabana, recorded by Spanish writers in the Caribbean in the early sixteenth century, became Spanish sabana and then English savanna, a treeless plain. The other traces the Savannah River's name to the Shawnee, whom English colonists in the Southeast wrote down as 'Savannah'. Both are serious; what is unsettled is which one gave the river its name.
How the name formed
- zabanaTaíno
- sabanaSpanish
- savannaEnglish
- SavannahGeorgia city
- Savannah
Related forms: Savanna · Savana · Sabana
Pronouncing Savannah
suh-VAN-uh
Three syllables, stress in the middle. The final h is silent — it is purely a spelling matter, and the h-less Savanna is read exactly the same way.
Nicknames for Savannah
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
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 20077,051 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #30reached in 2006
- Change vs 2022
- −29.8%2,141 in 2025, from 3,052
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.
Savannah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Savanna in English — spelling variant
- Savana in English — spelling variant
- Sabana in Spanish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Savannahs among us
people named Savannah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 751 born in 2025 was named Savannah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Savannah
- #135
- Savannah on the 2025 chart
- #123
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Savannah went to 2,141 girls in 2025, but Savanna, 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 — 12 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 668 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 751 for Savannah 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 Maria test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Savannah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Maria climbed just as high around 1975, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Maria's path sketches the road Savannah is walking now.
Savannah is coming down from a big peak (#30 in 2006). This is the stretch of the cycle where a name starts to sound like the decade it ruled.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Savannah is headed
Savannah is easing off slowly — about 18% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
High 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.
Savannah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Savannah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled the way it sounds for English speakers, and already familiar as both a city and a dictionary word — it rarely has to be explained.
- Two well-worn short forms, Sav and Savvy, both in real use without anyone having to invent them.
- The middle-syllable stress and soft ending sit easily against short, single-syllable surnames.
- The underlying word exists in Spanish, Portuguese and French, so the sound is not strange in most places it might travel.
- It carries the American South with it — Georgia specifically. That is charming to many people and simply geographic to others, but it is part of the name wherever it goes.
- Savanna and Savannah are both in circulation, so expect to spell it out or correct the missing h now and then.
- It rose quickly and has begun easing back, which means it reads to some ears as belonging to a particular generation of young women rather than to grandmothers or to newborns.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Savannah to the vote.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Savannah
Feminine · #135 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Savannahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 187,000 people named Savannah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Savannah?
- Savannah is the most-used spelling in US records — 2,141 of the 2,405 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Savanna, Savana and Savanah.
- How popular is the name Savannah in 2025?
- Savannah ranks #135 among US girl names in 2025, with 2,141 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Savannah?
- About 1 in every 751 US girls born in 2025 was named Savannah — 2,141 in all.
- Will my child share the name Savannah with classmates?
- Savannah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Savannah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Bella#136 · Eva#134 · Charlie#133 · Rylee#137 · Amira#132 · Emersyn#138 · Julia#131 · Elliana#139
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Savannah? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Savannah and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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