Sabrina
Meaning
from the River Severn goddess in Welsh myth
The story
Sabrina is the Latinized name of the River Severn, called Habren in old Welsh, the great river that divides England from Wales. Geoffrey of Monmouth wove a legend around it: a princess named Sabrina, drowned in its waters, became the river's guardian spirit, and Milton made her a gentle water nymph in his masque Comus, a maiden who rises to rescue the innocent. So the name is really a river given a girl's shape, and a girl given a river's grace. Modern audiences know it from the screen, from the 1954 film to Sabrina the Teenage Witch, which kept it bright and a little magical. In the United States Sabrina crested through the 1990s and 2000s and has never really left. Flowing, pretty and quietly mythic, it gives a child an ancient river and the nymph who watches over it.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Sabrina peaked in the 1990s and the 2000s in nearly equal measure.
Popularity in Brazil
186,700 people · the #177 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 1,088 · median age 22
Among people named Sabrina living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 2000s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 3,563 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Sabrina
Most people given the name Sabrina in the United States were born between 1970 and 2009. The Sabrina you meet today is most often in her 20s or 30s.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Sabrina deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Sabrina truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Sabrina fits with your family’s names and surname.
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