Suzan
Feminine · “lily”
Suzan is a lily. Hebrew shoshannah names the flower — a lily, or possibly a lotus, the scholarship is not settled on which — and it is one of the oldest flower names still in use anywhere. The z in this spelling writes the sound English already makes, since an s between two vowels is voiced whether or not it is spelled that way.
How old is the name Suzan?
Suzan first appears in US birth records in 1898 — 127 years ago. The typical Suzan alive today was born around 1958, making them about 67 years old. About 7,400 people named Suzan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Suzan most popular?
Suzan peaked in 1955, reaching #397 nationally. See the whole 1955 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From shoshannah to Suzan
The story of Suzan
The name reaches English through a story that most English Bibles do not contain. Susanna and the Elders — a woman falsely accused, and the young Daniel who cross-examines her accusers into contradicting each other — belongs to the Greek text of Daniel, which Catholic and Orthodox Bibles keep and Protestant ones set aside as apocryphal. It is one of the earliest courtroom scenes in Western literature. The name spread regardless of which Bible a family used, became enormously common in mid-century America, and produced Susan, Suzanne, Suzan and Susanne along the way.
Meaning
lily
Hebrew shoshannah names a flower and is generally read as a lily; some scholars prefer a lotus or a water lily, since the word may have reached Hebrew from Egyptian, where the lotus was the flower that mattered. Either way it is a flower and the reading is not seriously disputed. The same word survives in the modern Hebrew shoshan and in the place name Susa, the Persian capital, which may itself have been named for lilies.
How the name formed
- shoshannah
- Susanna
- Susan
- Suzan
Related forms: שׁוֹשַׁנָּה · Suzanne · Susana · Susanne · Zsuzsanna
Pronouncing Suzan
SOO-zun
SOO-zun, two syllables, stress at the front. Susan is said exactly the same way — English voices an s between vowels automatically, so the z is writing down a sound the standard spelling already had rather than changing anything.
Nicknames for Suzan
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
- 1898
- Most girls named
- 1955484 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #397reached in 1955
- Change vs 2022
- −37.5%5 in 2024, from 8
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.
Suzan in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- שׁוֹשַׁנָּה in Hebrew — transliteration
- Suzanne in French — same name
- Susana in Spanish — same name
- Susanne in German — same name
- Zsuzsanna in Hungarian — same name
Suzans among us
people named Suzan are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Suzan sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- The z makes the middle consonant explicit, which the standard spelling leaves to convention.
- Sue and Zan are both usable short forms and they sound completely different.
- The meaning is a single flower, settled, and among the oldest name meanings still in use.
- Susan is the standard spelling and this one will be rewritten as that on nearly every document.
- The name is very strongly associated with one American generation and dates a person closely.
- Suzanne, Susanne and Suzan are all close, so the ending has to be given as well as the z.
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Suzan
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Suzans are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 7,400 people named Suzan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Suzan in 2025?
- Suzan is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Suzan with classmates?
- Suzan will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More S names
The most-given names starting with S, all years combined.
Susan#1085 · Sarah#90 · Sandra#1207 · Stephanie#557 · Sharon#1250 · Shirley#1581 · Samantha#151 · Sophia#5
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Suzan? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Suzan and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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