Sara
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Sara is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Portugal it is the 33rd most common given name. In English, recorded as from Hebrew Sara(h) 'princess'; first attested Sarra c1160 DC (Leicestershire).
- PTPortugal≈1 in 203(inferred from the name graph)
- ITItaly≈1 in 262
- ESSpain1 in 278
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.
- United States (measured from records)
- #666 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 477 (measured from records)
- 1 in 147 (inferred from the name graph)
384,257 people, 2020
of 15M given names
Highest-authority source
Sweden
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
wife of the Prophet Ibrahim and mother of the Prophet Ismail
Sources 1
- A Dictionary of Muslim Names
Attested across 17 languages in the etymology graph.
How Sara is read(measured from records)
Sara is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- English43%
from Hebrew Sara(h) 'princess'; first attested Sarra c1160 DC (Leicestershire)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
A female given name from Latin [in turn from Ancient Greek, in turn from Hebrew], variant of Sarah.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Spanish24%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Sara in Spanish.
- Arabic6.4%
wife of the Prophet Ibrahim and mother of the Prophet Ismail
as a nameA Dictionary of Muslim Names
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Sara 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 384,257 | 1 in 866 | 384K | Sara | 477 |
| BR Brazil | #248 | 304,917 | 1 in 694 | 305K | Sara | 212 |
| IT Italy | #875 | ≈240,000 est. | ≈1 in 262 | — | Sara | 145 |
| ES Spain | #57 | 179,954 | 1 in 278 | 180K | Sara | 245 |
| CO Colombia | #92 | ≈98,000 est. | ≈1 in 500 | — | Sara | 181 |
| SE Sweden | — | 69,262 | 1 in 147 | 69K | Sara | 73 |
| PT Portugal | #33 | ≈51,000 est. | ≈1 in 203 | listed | Sara | 192 |
| SI Slovenia | — | 9,128 | 1 in 230 | 9.1K | — | 21 |
| IS Iceland | — | 1,502 | 1 in 234 | 1.5K | — | — |
384,257 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. 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; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); the pt-irn-lista-nomes register; SURS — resident population given names; Þjóðskrá Íslands — Name frequencies (NafnTíðni, registry). 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)
Sara is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Chad/Central African Republic: used for Sara peoples speaking Bongo-Bagirmi; also a form of Sarah (Hebrew/Arabic) meaning 'princess, noble.'
as a nameAfrican Names
Japanese version of the English name DSara(h). See main dictionary.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
Gives pleasure
as a nameThe book of African names
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)
- Sarah Bernhardtb. 1844FRnot in their usual nameFrench stage actress, painter and sculptor (1844–1923)
- Muriel Sparkb. 1918GBnot in their usual nameScottish novelist and writer (1918–2006)
- Sarah Fergusonb. 1959GBnot in their usual nameBritish writer, charity patron, public speaker, film producer and television personality, and former Duchess of York
- Sarah Mullallyb. 1962GBnot in their usual name106th archbishop of Canterbury
- Sarah Palinb. 1964USnot in their usual nameGovernor of Alaska from 2006 to 2009
- Sarah Clarkeb. 1972USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress
- Olivia Colmanb. 1974GBnot in their usual nameBritish actress
- Sarah Shahib. 1980USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress and model (born 1980)
- Rachel Bilsonb. 1981USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress
- Sarah McBrideb. 1990USnot in their usual nameAmerican human rights activist and politician (born 1990)
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 176 sources across 88 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 384K | #120 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 305K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 303K | #96 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 234K | #221 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 180K | #44 |
| ES Spain | INE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 175K | #22 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 69K | #51 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 45K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 32K | — |
| SI Slovenia | SURS — resident population given names | 2025 | 9.1K | #11 |
| IS Iceland | Þjóðskrá Íslands — Name frequencies (NafnTíðni, registry) | 2026 | 1.5K | — |
| IS Iceland | Hagstofa — population register names 2023 | 2023 | 1.4K | #15 |
Reference works 9
- 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
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
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
- Where does the name Sara come from?
- wife of the Prophet Ibrahim and mother of the Prophet Ismail Recorded by A Dictionary of Muslim Names.
- In which country does Sara have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 384 thousand people named Sara, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled sara.
- Where is Sara most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Sara is densest in Sweden — about 1 in 147 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- What are other forms of the name Sara?
- In the etymology graph, Sarah, Sally and Sadie are forms of the same name in other languages.
- Is Sara a male or female name?
- Sara 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 common is the name Sara?
- In the United States, the national register counted 384,257 people named Sara in 2020, about 1 in 866 residents.
- How common is Sara compared with other names?
- In Portugal, Sara is the 33rd most common given name of 19,352 given names recorded there.
- What does the name Sara mean?
- In English, from Hebrew Sara(h) 'princess'; first attested Sarra c1160 DC (Leicestershire)
What do you want to know about Sara?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/saraThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 1,000 requests a day, and bulk access is licensed separately.
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, “Sara” — the 33rd most common given name in Portugal. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.