Humanverse

Sabra vs Sabre

American parents have registered 4,960 Sabras since 1880, against 593 Sabres. Sabra is still ahead, with 8 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Sabra against Sabre, 1880 to 2025 0 40 80 120 160 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Sabra Sabre

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Of the 138 years in which either name was published, Sabra for 136 years and Sabre for 2 years. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Sabra Sabre
Total US births 4,960593
Most in one year 15534
Babies in 2025 86
Estimated living today 3,800570
Median age today 4930
Peak year 19611994
Best rank 848th girls3,790th girls
Rank in 2025 10,917th13,208th
First recorded 18801960
Girls / boys 4,960 / 0520 / 73

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Sabras alive today are over 49; half the Sabres are over 30. That is 19 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Sabra Sabre
France 27025
England and Wales 63

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Sabra and Sabre.