Zainab
Zainab reached its high-water mark in 2025 at number 807, and has been recorded 7,326 times in all. In 2025 it ranked 807th. About 7,300 Zainabs are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 12.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Zainab
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 7,326
- Estimated living today
- 7,300
- Median age today
- 12
- Peak year
- 2025
- Best rank
- 807th
- Rank in 2025
- 807th
- First recorded
- 1957
How old the living Zainabs are
born that year still alive today
Of the 7,326 babies given the name since 1957, about 7,300 are alive — 99 in every hundred. Roughly 4,900 of them are children and 10 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2013 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.
Notable Zainabs
- Zainab bint Muhammad (599–629)Eldest daughter of the Islamic prophet Muhammad
- Zainab Hawa Bangura (born 1959)Sierra Leonean politician
- Zainab Salbi (born 1969)Iraqi American author, women's rights activist
- Zainab al-Ghazali (1917–2005)Egyptian activist
- Zainab Ahmed (born 1960)Nigerian politician
- Zainab Fasiki (born 1994)Moroccan comics artist, mechanical engineer and activist for women's rights
- Zainab Balogun (born 1989)Nigerian-English actress
People named Zainab with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Zainab is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Zainab is most concentrated in New York (2.7×), Virginia (2.6×), New Jersey (2.4×), Michigan (2.4×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2025
The most popular girls’ names the year Zainab peaked:
Zainab elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales girls | Zainab | 9,792 | 128th |
| France girls | Zainab +1 spelling | 1,135 | 725th |
| Italy girls | Zainab | 930 | — |
| Norway girls | Zainab | 493 | 257th |
| Belgium girls | Zainab +1 spelling | 417 | 270th |
| Scotland girls | Zainab | 399 | 174th |
| Ireland girls | Zainab | 213 | 280th |
| Switzerland girls | Zainab | 87 | 560th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Zainab | 8 | 290th |
| Poland girls | Zainab | 4 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.
Zainab: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Zainab | 67 | 0.005% | 532nd |
| French girls | Switzerland | Zainab | 19 | 0.004% | 416th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Zainab | 1 | 0.002% | 179th |
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, Zainab is most concentrated in Zurich, where 0.01% of children were given it – 26 of them.
Zainab: rank by region
In 2025, Zainab was given 5 times or more in 2 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Zainab | 249 | 22 |
| Brussels | Zainab | 85 | 12 |
In 2016, Zainab was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Zainab | 10 | 1 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Zainab appears in the lists for Brussels-Capital Region (85th), Province of Antwerp (182nd) and Province of West Flanders (186th).
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.
Zainab by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 30 | 299th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Zainab 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 | Zainab | 240 | 264 |
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 Zainab lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 1,870 women called Zainab 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ceuta | Zainab | 54 | 1.304 | 175 |
| Melilla | Zainab | 24 | 0.554 | 314 |
| Almería | Zainab | 94 | 0.249 | 423 |
| Girona | Zainab | 77 | 0.186 | 522 |
| Tarragona | Zainab | 79 | 0.181 | 550 |
| Rioja, La | Zainab | 29 | 0.175 | 533 |
Listed in 40 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 12 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
Zainab 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.