Sara

Popularity, 1880–2025

girls named Sara boys named Sara

By the numbers

Total US births

437,441

Estimated living today

354,000

Median age today

39

Peak year

1981

Best rank

26th

Rank in 2025

198th

First recorded

1880

Girls / boys

436,193 / 1,248

How old the living Saras are

born that year still alive today

Of the 437,441 babies given the name since 1880, about 354,000 are alive — 81 in every hundred. Roughly 37,000 of them are children and 35,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1986 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 Latin, from Ancient Greek, from Hebrew

From Latin Sara (“Sarah”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Notable Saras

• Sara Bareilles (born 1979)American recording artist; pop rock singer-songwriter and pianist
• Sara Errani (born 1987)Italian tennis player
• Sara Teasdale (1884–1933)American writer and poet
• Sara Ali Khan (born 1995)Indian Actress
• Sara Ramirez (born 1975)Mexican-American actor and singer
• Sara Gilbert (born 1975)American actress
• Sara Canning (born 1987)Canadian actress
• Sara Ahmed (born 1969)British-Australian scholar

People named Sara with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Where Sara is most common

• CA39,629
• NY30,061
• TX27,836
• PA25,476
• OH19,888
• IL18,762
• GA17,023
• MI16,420
• FL14,762
• NJ12,011

Relative to how many babies each state records, Sara is most concentrated in South Carolina (1.4×), Georgia (1.4×), Wisconsin (1.3×), Minnesota (1.3×).

Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.

Names of 1981

The most popular girls’ names the year Sara peaked:

• Jennifer
• Jessica
• Amanda
• Sarah
• Melissa
• Amy

All the names of 1981

Sara elsewhere

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.

Sara: births by region

Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.

By canton, Sara is most concentrated in Ticino, where 0.82% of children were given it – 512 of them.

Sara: rank by region

In 2025, Sara was given 5 times or more in 3 regions of Belgium.

In 2024, Sara was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Spain. It has come first somewhere in 9 different years.

In 2024, Sara was among the 10 most common names in 2 regions of Italy. It has come first somewhere in 3 different years.

In 2025, Sara was given 2 times or more in 16 regions of Poland.

In 2018, with the country taken in 5 parts rather than 21, Sara appears in the lists for Sud (10th).

In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Sara appears in the lists for Province of Antwerp (16th), Brussels-Capital Region (18th), Province of Limburg (31st), Province of Flemish Brabant (34th), Province of East Flanders (49th), Province of Liège (65th), Province of West Flanders (71st) and Province of Hainaut (133rd).

Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Spain after 10 names, Italy after 10 names, Poland below 2 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.

Sara by city

One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.

Sara 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.

A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, 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 Sara lives in Spain

Not a count of births but of people: 179,954 women called Sara 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

Listed in 52 of Spain's 52 provinces. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.

Related names

• Sarah
• Sarai
• Sarina
• Sariah
• Sarahi
• Sariyah
• Sarita
• Sari
• Sarena
• Saray
• Saraya
• Sariya

Sara against another name

Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.

• Sara vs Sarah
• Sara vs Sarai
• Sara vs Sarina
• Sara vs Sariah
• Sara vs Sarahi
• Sara vs Sariyah

Compare Sara with a name of your own