Suzannah
Feminine · “Hebrew shoshannah”
Shoshannah is probably a lotus, not a lily. The Hebrew word came in from Egyptian, where sšn named the blue lotus that grows in the Nile, and the standard English translation as lily is a Mediterranean substitution for a flower the translators did not have. The name means the flower nobody in Europe had seen.
How old is the name Suzannah?
Suzannah first appears in US birth records in 1940 — 85 years ago. The typical Suzannah alive today was born around 1990, making them about 35 years old. About 1,700 people named Suzannah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Suzannah most popular?
Suzannah peaked in 1975, reaching #2097 nationally. Today it ranks #8362, 6,265 places below that high. See the whole 1975 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From shoshannah to Suzannah
The story of Suzannah
The story of Susanna is a courtroom drama and it survives only in Greek. Two elders spy on a married woman bathing, demand she submit to them, and when she refuses accuse her of adultery with a young man. She is condemned. Daniel intervenes, insists the witnesses be examined separately, and asks each under what tree the act took place; they name different trees, and the accusation collapses. The passage is in the Greek Daniel and not in the Hebrew, so it is canonical for Catholic and Orthodox Christians and apocryphal for Jews and Protestants. It is also one of the earliest surviving accounts of cross-examination as a legal method, and it was cited in that connection by English lawyers for centuries. The story made the name popular across medieval Europe.
Meaning
Hebrew shoshannah, a lotus or lily
From Hebrew shoshannah, a flower, borrowed from Egyptian sšn, the lotus. English versions translate it as lily, following the Greek and Latin, but the plant intended is more likely a water lily or lotus. The name belongs to the heroine of the story of Susanna in the Greek additions to Daniel, and to a woman named in Luke. Suzannah is a French-influenced English spelling. It peaks in 1975.
How the name formed
- shoshannah
- Susanna
- Suzannah
Related forms: Shoshana · Suzanne · Susannah
Pronouncing Suzannah
soo-ZAN-ah
Three syllables, stress on the second. The z spelling follows French; English traditionally writes Susannah with an s, said the same way. The Hebrew Shoshana is shoh-shah-NAH with the stress at the end.
Nicknames for Suzannah
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
- 1940
- Most girls named
- 199852 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2097reached in 1975
- Change vs 2023
- +20.0%12 in 2025, from 10
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.
Suzannah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Shoshana in Hebrew — transliteration
- Suzanne in French — same name
- Susannah in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas.
Suzannahs among us
people named Suzannah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 133,939 born in 2025 was named Suzannah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Suzannah
- #8362
- Suzannah on the 2025 chart
- #564
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Suzannah went to 12 girls in 2025, but Susanna, Susana and Susannah and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 6 spellings went to 433, which makes it the 564th most-given girls’ name of the year — 7,798 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 3,712 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 133,939 for Suzannah 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 Ginnie test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Suzannah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Ginnie climbed just as high around 1960, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Ginnie's path sketches the road Suzannah is walking now.
Suzannah 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
Suzannah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Suzannah 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 settled and the story behind it is a strong one.
- Suzy and Zanna are two very different short forms.
- The name is recognized across Europe and in Hebrew.
- Susannah, Susanna and Suzanne all compete.
- The z is a French import into an English name.
- The flower the name refers to is not the one the translation names.
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What they receive
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Suzannah
Feminine · #8362 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Suzannahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,700 people named Suzannah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Suzannah?
- Suzannah is one of 6 recorded spellings. Susanna is the more common one — 197 births in 2025 against 12 for Suzannah.
- How popular is the name Suzannah in 2025?
- Suzannah ranks #8362 among US girl names in 2025, with 12 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Suzannah?
- About 1 in every 133,939 US girls born in 2025 was named Suzannah — 12 in all.
- Will my child share the name Suzannah with classmates?
- Suzannah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Suzannah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lona#8362 · Peggy#8362 · Leda#8362 · Margarette#8362 · Rella#8362 · Evalena#8362 · Vashti#8362 · Nona#8362
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Suzannah? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Suzannah and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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