Humanverse

Safira vs Safiyyah

American parents have registered 768 Safiyyahs since 1880, against 297 Safiras. Safiyyah is still ahead, with 36 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Safira against Safiyyah, 1880 to 2025 0 10 20 30 40 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Safira Safiyyah

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 49 years in which either name was published, Safiyyah for 45 years and Safira for 4 years. The lead changed hands 8 times.

Side by side

  Safira Safiyyah
Total US births 297768
Most in one year 3036
Babies in 2025 3036
Estimated living today 300760
Median age today 917
Peak year 20252025
Best rank 4,546th girls3,975th girls
Rank in 2025 4,546th3,975th
First recorded 19841976
Girls / boys 297 / 0768 / 0

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 Safiyyahs alive today are over 17; half the Safiras are over 9. That is 8 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 Safira Safiyyah
England and Wales 871,751
France 21080

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: Safira and Safiyyah.