Sally
Sally reached its high-water mark in 1947 at number 70, and has been recorded 205,876 times in all. In 2025 it ranked 1,150th. About 119,000 Sallys are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 69.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Sally boys named Sally
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 205,876
- Estimated living today
- 119,000
- Median age today
- 69
- Peak year
- 1947
- Best rank
- 70th
- Rank in 2025
- 1,150th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 205,229 / 647
How old the living Sallys are
born that year still alive today
Of the 205,876 babies given the name since 1880, about 119,000 are alive — 58 in every hundred. Roughly 3,700 of them are children and 77,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1956 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
A diminutive lambdacism of Sarah. Compare Hal from Harry and Moll from Mary.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Sallys
- Sally Field (born 1946)American actress
- Sally Ride (1951–2012)American astronaut and physicist
- Sally Hawkins (born 1976)English actress
- Sally Rooney (born 1991)Irish author
- Sally Kellerman (1937–2022)American actress
- Sally Pearson (born 1986)Australian short-distance runner and hurdler
- Sally Kirkland (1941–2025)American actress, film producer, and activist
- Sally Potter (born 1949)English film director and screenwriter
People named Sally with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Sally is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Sally is most concentrated in Vermont (2.0×), Maine (1.8×), Michigan (1.8×), Wisconsin (1.6×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1947
The most popular girls’ names the year Sally peaked:
Sally elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| New Zealand girls | Sally | 2,445 | 50th |
| England and Wales girls | Sally | 2,294 | 144th |
| Sweden girls | Sally | 1,895 | 56th |
| Ireland girls | Sally | 1,085 | 176th |
| Scotland girls | Sally | 861 | 108th |
| France girls | Sally | 855 | 1,594th |
| Italy girls | Sally | 410 | — |
| Belgium girls | Sally | 100 | 475th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Sally | 48 | 255th |
| France boys | Sally | 35 | 4,209th |
| Norway girls | Sally | 5 | 460th |
| Poland girls | Sally | 2 birth registrations | 724th |
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.
Sally: rank by region
In 1999, Sally was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Sally | 726 | 5 |
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.
Sally by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 8 | 555th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Sally 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 girls | Sally | 175 | 253 |
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 Sally lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 258 women called Sally were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Almería | Sally | 11 | 0.029 | 1,838 |
| Alicante/Alacant | Sally | 29 | 0.028 | 1,943 |
| Málaga | Sally | 22 | 0.024 | 1,905 |
| Balears, Illes | Sally | 15 | 0.024 | 2,167 |
| Palmas, Las | Sally | 12 | 0.020 | 3,267 |
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Sally | 10 | 0.018 | 3,304 |
Listed in 12 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 40 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
Sally 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.