Sally
given name · Latin script
Meaning: A willow
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/sæli/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Sally is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- AUAustralia≈1 in 752(inferred from the name graph)
- HKHong Kong≈1 in 824
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 868
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- #658 (measured from records)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 571 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 752 (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,100,000 people, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Australia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
A willow.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 20 languages in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Sally, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Sally counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈1,100,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | — | Sally | 75 |
| US United States | #305 | 139,332 | 1 in 2.4K | 139K | Sally | 571 |
| GB United Kingdom | #163 | ≈76,000 est. | ≈1 in 868 | 50 | Sally | 324 |
| EG Egypt | #236 | ≈61,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.7K | — | Sally | 131 |
| PH Philippines | #616 | ≈42,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.6K | — | Sally | 108 |
| AU Australia | #149 | ≈34,000 est. | ≈1 in 752 | 84 | Sally | 274 |
| HK Hong Kong | #133 | ≈8,800 est. | ≈1 in 824 | — | Sally | 81 |
| SG Singapore | #127 | ≈5,400 est. | ≈1 in 1.1K | — | Sally | 106 |
| NZ New Zealand | #179 | ≈4,800 est. | ≈1 in 1K | 10 | Sally | 149 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present); DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Sally is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Swedish, Sally är en engelsk smekform till → Sara. I den finlandssvenska almanackan 19 juli.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
In French, Forme diminutive de Sarah; origine hébraïque, signifie « princesse ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In English, Anglais, diminutif de Sarah; d’origine hébraïque, « princesse ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In French, Diminutif anglais de Sarah.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
In English, Pet form of Sarah
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Sally Bensonb. 1897USAmerican writer (1897-1972)
- Sally Kellermanb. 1937USAmerican actress (1937–2022)
- Sally Kirklandb. 1941USAmerican actress, film producer, and activist (1941–2025)
- Sally Fieldb. 1946USAmerican actress
- Sally Rideb. 1951USAmerican astronaut and physicist (1951–2012)
- Sally Menkeb. 1953USAmerican film editor (1953-2010)
- Sally Yatesb. 1960USAmerican lawyer, 36th United States Deputy Attorney General
- Sally Phillipsb. 1970GBBritish actress
- Sally Hawkinsb. 1976GBEnglish actress (1976–)
- Sally Pearsonb. 1986AUAustralian short-distance runner and hurdler
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 91 sources across 45 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 139K | #404 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 237 | #404 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 201 | — |
| AU Australia | NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present) | 1993 | 84 | #99 |
| AU Australia | QLD BDM — Top 100 Baby Names Queensland (1960–present) | 1989 | 43 | — |
| AU Australia | Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM) | 1976 | 12 | — |
| AU Australia | SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present) | 1976 | 12 | — |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 2007 | 10 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1992 | 5 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present) | 2024 | 4 | #337 |
| AU Australia | Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM) | 2014 | 4 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 2021 | 3 | #792 |
Reference works 5
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What are other forms of the name Sally?
- In the etymology graph, Sara, Sarita and Sadie are forms of the same name in other languages; it is recorded as a short form of Sarah.
- What does the name Sally mean, and where does it come from?
- A willow. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- Is Sally a male or female name?
- Sally is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- How do you pronounce Sally?
- A machine transcription gives /sæli/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Sally have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.1 million people named Sally in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled sally.
- How common is the name Sally?
- In the United States, the national register counted 139,332 people named Sally in 2020, about 1 in 2.4 thousand residents.
- How common is Sally compared with other names?
- In Singapore, Sally is the 127th most common given name of 52,448 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Sally?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/sallyThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Sally” — the 127th most common given name in Singapore. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.