Sarah
Meaning
princess
Famously borne by Sarah Hoefflin, the Swiss Olympic slopestyle freeskiing champion. Immortalized by Sarah Connor in The Terminator (1984).
The story
Sarah is Hebrew for princess, the name given to Abraham's wife in Genesis when Sarai becomes Sarah, mother of nations. It has been a cornerstone of Jewish naming ever since and, by most accounts, one of the most common girls' names in colonial America. Its twentieth-century story is a great arc of leaving and returning: solidly used early on, quieter through the middle decades, then swept up in the 1970s revival of old biblical names and carried to a spectacular crest in the 1980s, when Sarah sat among the very top girls' names in the country. It has descended gradually since, as the daughters of that boom look elsewhere for their own children, but the name never reads as dated, only as permanent. Some names are borrowed by an era; Sarah has merely been lent out, century after century.
Sarah's name family
One shared root links 5 names across 2 languages.
Shared root: from Hebrew sarah "princess", the matriarch renamed from Sarai
The family
More branches
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Sarah peaked in the 1980s.
Popularity in Brazil
100,392 people · the #315 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 2,024 · median age 12
Among people named Sarah living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 2010s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 16,566 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Sarah
Most people given the name Sarah in the United States were born between 1970 and 1999. The Sarah you meet today is most often in her 30s or 40s.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Sarah deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Sarah 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 Sarah fits with your family’s names and surname.
Where Sarah travels
Jewish American · one of the most enduring names across generations of Jewish American families
Korean American · princess (the matriarch; a steady church classic for Korean American daughters)
Global crossover · simultaneously a top-10 name in the US, UK, Netherlands and Sweden through the 1980s-90s
Hebrew · princess, noblewoman
Keep exploring
Nicknames for Sarah · Global crossover names · Jewish American baby names · Korean American baby names · Hebrew baby names
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