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Sarai vs Saralyn

American parents have registered 22,925 Sarais since 1880, against 1,299 Saralyns. Sarai is still ahead, with 733 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Sarai Saralyn

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 94 years in which either name was published, Sarai for 59 years and Saralyn for 35 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Sarai Saralyn
Total US births 22,9251,299
Most in one year 81828
Babies in 2025 7339
Estimated living today 23,0001,100
Median age today 1541
Peak year 20071961
Best rank 398th girls2,250th girls
Rank in 2025 424th10,107th
First recorded 19531924
Girls / boys 22,919 / 61,299 / 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 Saralyns alive today are over 41; half the Sarais are over 15. That is 26 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: Sarai and Saralyn.