Saleh
About 1,783 American babies have been named Saleh since 1974, most of them around 2018. In 2025 it ranked 2,451st. About 1,800 Salehs are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 13.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Saleh boys named Saleh
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 1,783
- Estimated living today
- 1,800
- Median age today
- 13
- Peak year
- 2018
- Best rank
- 1,823rd
- Rank in 2025
- 2,451st
- First recorded
- 1974
- Girls / boys
- 6 / 1,777
How old the living Salehs are
born that year still alive today
Of the 1,783 babies given the name since 1974, about 1,800 are alive — 98 in every hundred. Roughly 1,100 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
From fa-ira صالح or directly from Arabic صَالِح.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Salehs
- Saleh al-Arouri (1966–2024)senior leader of Hamas
- Saleh Al-Shehri (born 1993)Saudi footballer
- Mahamat Saleh Haroun (born 1961)Chadian film director, producer and screenwriter
- Saleh Kebzabo (born 1947)Chadian politician
- Saleh El-Sharabaty (born 1998)Jordanian taekwondo practitioner
- Saleh as-Sammad (1979–2018)former head of the Houthi Supreme Political Council
- Saleh al-Jafarawi (1997–2025)Palestinian journalist, media personality and content creator
- Saleh Gomaa (born 1993)Egyptian association football player
People named Saleh with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Saleh is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Saleh is most concentrated in Michigan (5.0×), New York (4.9×), California (2.5×), Illinois (2.1×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2018
The most popular boys’ names the year Saleh peaked:
Saleh elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales boys | Saleh | 559 | 738th |
| France boys | Saleh | 125 | 2,852nd |
| Norway boys | Saleh | 112 | 465th |
| Scotland boys | Saleh | 8 | 614th |
| Belgium boys | Saleh | 7 | 1,072nd |
| Poland boys | Saleh | 2 birth registrations | 729th |
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.
Saleh: rank by region
In 2025, Saleh was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Saleh | 806 | 6 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children – 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.
Saleh by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 2 | 578th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Saleh 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 | Saleh | 39 | 141 |
| Finland girls | Saleh | — | 52 |
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 Saleh lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 439 men called Saleh 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 | Saleh | 25 | 0.571 | 265 |
| Araba/Álava | Saleh | 11 | 0.065 | 941 |
| Palmas, Las | Saleh | 26 | 0.045 | 1,735 |
| Gipuzkoa | Saleh | 15 | 0.042 | 1,181 |
| Tarragona | Saleh | 17 | 0.039 | 1,459 |
| Almería | Saleh | 13 | 0.033 | 1,663 |
Listed in 27 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 25 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
Saleh 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.