Sarah
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in English: Hebrew: of Abraham, mother of Isaac in the Bible (Baby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…)
A female name· listed as female by the registers that count names by sex
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 87 countries · latest register: SSA, 2025
/ˈsɛɚ.ə/(recorded in a dictionary) English · from Wiktionary
Sarah is a female given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country: 874,128 people, counted by the Census Bureau in 2020, which ranks it 35th. Sarah is also written שרה in Hebrew, Зара in Cyrillic and 세라 in Korean (Hangul).
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 210(inferred from the name graph)
- AUAustralia≈1 in 210
- KWKuwait≈1 in 310
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Sarah itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- #76 (measured from records)
- 9 (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 655 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 206 (inferred from the name graph)
874,128 people, 2020
of 15M given names, spellings grouped
recorded for this name
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
United Kingdom, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Sarah in other scripts: Hebrew, Cyrillic, Korean (Hangul) and 4 more
(measured from records)Locally spelled שרה in IL Israel and Sara in SE Sweden.
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.
How to pronounce Sarah
- English:/ˈsɛɚ.ə/(recorded in a dictionary) from Wiktionary
- French:/sa.ʁa/(recorded in a dictionary) from Wiktionary
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)In Judaism, she is the first of the four matriarchs and a prophetess. In Christianity, she is a model of faith (Hebrews 11) and represents the 'free woman' of the covenant of grace (Galatians 4). In Islam, she is honored as the wife of Ibrahim and mother of Ishaq.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Biblical Names Compiled Database
Attested across 23 languages in the etymology graph.
How Sarah is read
(measured from records)Sarah is one spelling over 2 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.
- English73%
Hebrew: of Abraham, mother of Isaac in the Bible
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
- French6.8%
From Hebrew sara(h), meaning 'princess'.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Hebrew origin; Sarai becomes Sarah after adding a divine H. Biblical wife of Abram/Abraham; name-day not given.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
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.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Sarah, 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)Sarah 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 | #40 | 874,128 | 1 in 381 | 873K | Sarah | 655 |
| NG Nigeria | #54 | ≈390,000 est. | ≈1 in 599 | — | Sarah | 119 |
| GB United Kingdom | #21 | ≈340,000 est. | ≈1 in 206 | 666 | Sarah | 414 |
| BR Brazil | — | 304,917as Sara | 1 in 694 | 305K | — | 11 |
| ID Indonesia | #189 | ≈250,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.1K | listed | Sarah | 216 |
| ES Spain | #238 | 179,954as Sara | 1 in 278 | 180K | Sarah | 184 |
| AU Australia | #16 | ≈130,000 est. | ≈1 in 213 | 393 | Sarah | 342 |
| SE Sweden | #7 | 69,262as Sara | 1 in 147 | 69K | Sara | 170 |
| IL Israel | #11 | ≈63,000 est. | ≈1 in 159 | 589 | שרה | 122 |
874,128 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; ONS — Baby names England and Wales (2024); CBS Israel — Names given to babies (1949–present); Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population). 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)Sarah 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.
In Judaism, she is the first of the four matriarchs and a prophetess. In Christianity, she is a model of faith (Hebrews 11) and represents the 'free woman' of the covenant of grace (Galatians 4). In Islam, she is honored as the wife of Ibrahim and mother of Ishaq.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
The name Sarah (שָׂרָה) means 'Princess', 'Noblewoman', or 'Chieftainess'. Her original name, Sarai (שָׂרָי), is often interpreted as 'My Princess' or potentially 'Contentious'.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
A timeless biblical name meaning 'princess', consistently popular in Western and Middle Eastern cultures for its elegance and historical significance.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
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)- Muriel Sparkb. 1918GBnot in their usual nameScottish novelist and writer (1918–2006)
- Sarah Shahib. 1980USAmerican actress and model (born 1980)
- Rachel Bilsonb. 1981USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress
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)160 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 87 countries.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- Where does the name Sarah come from?
- In Judaism, she is the first of the four matriarchs and a prophetess. In Christianity, she is a model of faith (Hebrews 11) and represents the 'free woman' of the covenant of grace (Galatians 4). Recorded by Biblical Names Compiled Database.
- What are other forms of the name Sarah?
- In the etymology graph, Sara, Sare and Sarina are forms of the same name in other languages; Sally, Sadie and Sallie are recorded short or pet forms.
- Is Sarah a male or female name?
- Sarah is a female name. National registers that list it by sex list it as female: United States (Census Bureau, 2020), France (INSEE, 2024), Brazil (IBGE, 2022) and Austria (Statistik Austria, 2024), among others.
- Which countries have the most people named Sarah?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 874 thousand people named Sarah, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled sarah. After it come Nigeria, United Kingdom, Brazil and Indonesia; the country table on this page ranks them.
- How common is the name Sarah?
- In the United States, the national register counted 874,128 people named Sarah in 2020, about 1 in 381 residents.
- How common is Sarah compared with other names?
- In the United States, Sarah is the 40th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
- What does the name Sarah mean?
- In English, Hebrew: of Abraham, mother of Isaac in the Bible
- How do you pronounce Sarah?
- It depends on the language: in English /ˈsɛɚ.ə/ (Wiktionary); in French /sa.ʁa/ (Wiktionary).
What do you want to know about Sarah?
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/sarahThe 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, “Sarah” — ranked 35th in the United States (Census Bureau, 2020). Data snapshot 2026-10-13.