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Sarahy vs Sarai

American parents have registered 22,925 Sarais since 1880, against 947 Sarahys. Sarai is still ahead, with 733 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Sarahy against Sarai, 1880 to 2025 0 250 500 750 1k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Sarahy Sarai

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

Sarai has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1953 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2001, when Sarahy had 44 and Sarai had 480.

Side by side

  Sarahy Sarai
Total US births 94722,925
Most in one year 53818
Babies in 2025 11733
Estimated living today 94023,000
Median age today 1915
Peak year 20082007
Best rank 3,158th girls398th girls
Rank in 2025 8,860th424th
First recorded 19891953
Girls / boys 947 / 022,919 / 6

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 Sarahys alive today are over 19; half the Sarais are over 15. That is 4 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

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