Salah
Salah reached its high-water mark in 2019 at number 2,626, and has been recorded 1,185 times in all. It is given to both boys and girls. In 2025 it ranked 3,240th. About 1,200 Salahs are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 13.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Salah boys named Salah
Girls and boys called Salah
years more girls than boys years more boys than girls
Both, throughout, without either side ever taking it over: 195 girls and 990 boys in all, and in 2025 the split was 22 to 36.
The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 22 years in which at least 25 babies got it. The line touches the middle more often than there are crossings marked: a year or two on the other side is not a name changing hands, and only a move that holds for 5 counted years and reaches 60/40 is recorded as one. All 581 names that changed sex.
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 1,185
- Estimated living today
- 1,200
- Median age today
- 13
- Peak year
- 2019
- Best rank
- 2,626th
- Rank in 2025
- 3,240th
- First recorded
- 1972
- Girls / boys
- 195 / 990
How old the living Salahs are
born that year still alive today
Of the 1,185 babies given the name since 1972, about 1,200 are alive — 98 in every hundred. Roughly 720 of them are children and 0 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2012 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Arabic
As an Islamic/Arabic surname, as well as a Jewish adoption of it, from صَلاة (“prayer”) or صَلاح (“righteousness”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Salahs
- Mohamed Salah (born 1992)Egyptian association football player
- Salah Abdeslam (born 1989)terrorist
- Salah ad-Din al-Bitar (1912–1980)Syrian politician
- Salah Mejri (born 1986)Tunisian basketball player
- Salah Hissou (born 1972)Moroccan long-distance runner
- Salah Assad (born 1958)Algerian footballer
- Salah Zulfikar (1926–1993)Egyptian actor and producer
- Salah Shehade (1953–2002)Palestinian leader
People named Salah with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Salah is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Salah is most concentrated in Minnesota (9.4×), New York (5.3×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2019
The most popular boys’ names the year Salah peaked:
Salah elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France boys | Salah +1 spelling | 4,320 | 225th |
| England and Wales boys | Salah | 394 | 958th |
| Italy boys | Salah | 315 | — |
| Belgium boys | Salah | 192 | 675th |
| Norway boys | Salah | 132 | 422nd |
| Ireland boys | Salah | 3 | 779th |
| Northern Ireland boys | Salah | 3 | 433rd |
| Scotland boys | Salah | 3 | 704th |
| Poland boys | Salah | 2 birth registrations | 564th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Salah: rank by region
In 2019, Salah was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Salah | 743 | 6 |
In 2024, Salah was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Salah | 8 | 1 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Salah by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 5 | 537th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Salah among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland boys | Salah | 76 | 147 |
| Finland girls | Salah | — | 70 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Salah lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 2,995 men called Salah were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Men: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Melilla | Salah | 47 | 1.074 | 157 |
| Almería | Salah | 267 | 0.679 | 181 |
| Murcia | Salah | 506 | 0.637 | 178 |
| Teruel | Salah | 37 | 0.534 | 205 |
| Huelva | Salah | 79 | 0.295 | 303 |
| Alicante/Alacant | Salah | 288 | 0.286 | 330 |
Listed in 47 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 5 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Salah against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.