How popular is the baby name Sarah in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Sarah.

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Popularity of the baby name Sarah


Posts that mention the name Sarah

Popular baby names in New York City, 2015

Flag of New York
Flag of New York

According to data from the New York City Department of Health, the most popular baby names in the city last year were Olivia and Ethan.

Here are New York City’s top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2015:

Girl Names
1. Olivia (595 baby girls)
2. Sophia
3. Emma (tied)
4. Mia (tied)
5. Isabella
6. Leah
7. Emily
8. Ava
9. Chloe
10. Madison

Boy Names
1. Ethan (773 baby boys)
2. Liam
3. Noah
4. Jacob
5. Jayden
6. Matthew
7. David
8. Daniel (tied)
9. Dylan (tied)
10. Aiden

On the girls’ list, Olivia replaced Sophia as the top name, and Madison replaced Sofia in the top 10.

On the boys’ list, Dylan and Aiden replaced Michael and Alexander in the top 10.

Here are the top names broken down by ethnic/racial group:

Latino:

Girl NamesBoy Names
1. Isabella
2. Sophia
3. Mia
4. Emma
5. Camila		1. Liam
2. Dylan
3. Ethan
4. Matthew
5. Noah

Black:

Girl NamesBoy Names
1. Madison
2. Skylar
3. Ava
4. Olivia
5. Mia		1. Noah
2. Liam
3. Aiden
4. Jeremiah
5. Ethan/Josiah (tie)

White:

Girl NamesBoy Names
1. Emma
2. Olivia
3. Leah
4. Sarah
5. Esther		1. David
2. Joseph
3. Moshe
4. Jacob
5. Benjamin

Asian & Pacific Islander:

Girl NamesBoy Names
1. Olivia
2. Chloe
3. Sophia
4. Emily
5. Emma		1. Jayden
2. Ethan
3. Ryan
4. Muhammad
5. Aiden

New York City’s less-popular names (used 10 times each) included…

  • Damaris, Eunice, and Shirin (girl names)
  • Dimitri, Immanuel, and Ousmane (boy names)

The news release also mentioned that NYC’s baby name data goes back as far back as 1898. That year, the top girl names were Mary, Catherine, and Margaret, and the top boy names were John, William, and Charles.

Here are NYC’s 2014 rankings.

Source: Olivia and Ethan Top Health Department’s Annual Most Popular Baby Names For 2015

Image: Adapted from Flag of New York (public domain)

Popular baby names in Israel, 2015

Flag of Israel
Flag of Israel

According to data released earlier this week by Israel’s Central Bureau for Statistics (CBS), the top three most popular baby names in the country overall in 2015 were:

  1. Mohammed
  2. Yosef (used for male babies — both Muslim and Jewish)
  3. Ariel (used for Jewish babies — both male and female)

The top baby names for Jewish babies specifically were Noa and Noam:

Girl names (Jewish)

1. Noa
2. Tamar
3. Maya
4. Avigayil/Avigail/Abigail
5. Talya/Talia
6. Adele
7. Shira
8. Ayala/Ayela
9. Yael
10. Sarah/Sara

Boy names (Jewish)

1. Noam
2. David
3. Ori/Uri
4. Ariel
5. Eitan
6. Yosef
7. Itai/Itay
8. Yonatan
9. Daniel
10. Moshe

The CBS also reported that the boy names Dror, Yagel/Yigal, and Alroi/Elroi/Elroy each saw a sharp rise in usage in 2015.

The top baby names for Muslim babies specifically were Maryam and Mohammad:

Girl names (Muslim)

1. Maryam/Miryam/Mariam
2. Sha’im
3. Jana/Janah
4. Lin
5. Lian/Layan
6. Alin/Aline
7. Sa’ara

Boy names (Muslim)

1. Mohammad
2. Ahmed
3. Yosef
4. Omar
5. Adam
6. Jud/Jod
7. Abed
8. Ali
9. Amir
10. Ibrahim

The 2012 rankings for Israel are pretty similar.

Update, Oct. 2017: Here’s an interesting fact about Israel’s 2014 rankings (which I never wrote a post about): “Eitan soared in popularity to No. 5 from 10th place in 2014, a surge attributed to that year’s war in Gaza dubbed Operation Protective Edge, or Mivtza Tzuk Eitan in Hebrew.” (Source: Times of Israel)

Sources:

Image: Adapted from Flag of Israel (public domain)

Popular baby names in Belgium, 2015

Flag of Belgium
Flag of Belgium

According to data from Statistics Belgium, the country’s most popular baby names last year were Emma and Louis.

Here are Belgium’s top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2015:

Girl Names

  1. Emma, 645 baby girls
  2. Louise, 596
  3. Olivia, 538
  4. Elise, 437
  5. Alice, 428
  6. Juliette, 404
  7. Mila, 400
  8. Lucie, 389
  9. Marie, 383
  10. Camille, 366

Boy Names

  1. Louis, 613 baby boys
  2. Arthur, 606
  3. Noah, 586
  4. Lucas, 572
  5. Liam, 561
  6. Adam, 543
  7. Victor, 487
  8. Jules, 468
  9. Mohamed, 461
  10. Nathan, 450

In the girls’ top 10, Mila and Camille replaced Lina and Ella.

In the boys’ top 10, Victor replaced Mathis.

Emma and Louis were also the top names in 2014.

Here are the top names within each of the three regions:

RegionGirl NamesBoy Names
Flanders
(58% of Belgians)
Language: Dutch		1. Louise
2. Emma
3. Marie
4. Elise
5. Ella		1. Lucas
2. Liam
3. Arthur
4. Louis
5. Noah
Wallonia
(32% of Belgians)
Language: mostly French		1. Léa
2. Lucie
3. Alice
4. Emma
5. Chloé		1. Louis
2. Hugo
3. Nathan
4. Noah
5. Gabriel
Brussels
(10% of Belgians)
Languages: Dutch/French		1. Nour
2. Lina
3. Sofia
4. Sara
5. Yasmine		1. Adam
2. Mohamed
3. Gabriel
4. Rayan
5. David

I find it interesting that Olivia, the 3rd-most-popular baby girl name in the country overall, didn’t hit the top 5 in any of the three regions. It came in 6th in both Flanders and Wallonia and 11th in Brussels.

Source: Voornamen van meisjes en jongens – Statbel

Image: Adapted from Flag of Belgium (public domain)

The top baby names in Maryland in 2011?

Maryland’s Open Data website includes a small table of popular baby names. It’s based on data from 2011, so it’s a bit out of date, but it does include top-10 lists for several different racial/ethnic groups.

This is cool because New York City does the very same breakdown, and we happen to have the equivalent NYC baby name rankings (2011). So we ought to be able to compare and contrast the two sets of rankings, right?

Yeah, that’s what I thought…until I started looking more closely at Maryland’s data.

According to the SSA, these were the top 10 boy names in Maryland in 2011:

  1. Mason
  2. Jacob
  3. Michael
  4. Ethan
  5. Ryan
  6. William
  7. Alexander
  8. Noah
  9. Daniel
  10. Aiden (tied for 10th)
  11. Jayden (tied for 10th)

But according to the state of Maryland, the top 10 boy names were quite different:

RankOVERALLAsian &
Pacific Isl.		BlackHispanicWhite
1AidenAidenJaidenChristopherLucas
2ChristopherLucasAidenAnthonyMason
3JaydenAlexanderChristopherJohnJackson
4MasonMuhammedCameronAlexanderJacob
5LucasEthanElijahDanielJohn
6JacobNathanJeremyMatthewAiden
7AlexanderJohnMichaelBrianAlexander
8NathanAndrewIsaiahJustinLiam
9MichaelJustinMasonJaidenWilliam
10EthanJacobCalebKevinRyan

It isn’t totally implausible that Aiden and Jayden ranked 1st and 3rd in 2011, but Christopher in 2nd? Maybe if this were a dataset from thirty years ago, but not five years ago. The SSA indicates that Christopher ranked closer to 18th in the state that year.

And what’s with the two different spellings of Jayden/Jaiden?

Plus there are some sizable raw number discrepancies, such as:

  • Aiden: 588 babies (MD data) vs. 281 babies (SSA data for MD)
  • Christopher: 584 babies (MD data) vs. 256 babies (SSA data for MD)
  • Jayden: 498 babies (MD data) vs. 281 babies (SSA data for MD)
  • Mason: 463 babies (MD data) vs. 432 babies (SSA data for MD)

And now the girl names. According to the SSA, these were the top 10 girl names in Maryland in 2011:

  1. Sophia
  2. Olivia
  3. Isabella
  4. Madison
  5. Ava
  6. Emma
  7. Abigail
  8. Chloe
  9. Emily
  10. Elizabeth

According to the state of Maryland, though, the top 10 girl names in the state were these:

RankOVERALLAsian &
Pacific Isl.		BlackHispanicWhite
1SophiaSophiaChloeSophiaSophia
2IsabelChloeLondonEmilyIsabel
3ChloeIsabelLaylaAllisonAbigail
4AvaCaitlin/KateMadisonIsabelOlivia
5MadisonHannahKennedyAshleyAva
6OliviaOliviaAaliyahAngelinaRiley
7EmilySara(h)McKenzieNatalieMadison
8McKenzieAbigailZoe(y)GenesisEmily
9AbigailEmilyPaytonGabrielleMcKenzie
10RileyLillian/LilyTaylorKimberlyChloe

Not only does Isabel magically replace Isabella in the Maryland data, but McKenzie and Riley rank 8th and 10th — even though the SSA says they should be closer to 77th (!) and 28th.

Not to mention the raw number discrepancies, such as:

  • Sophia: 503 babies (MD data) vs. 367 babies (SSA data for MD)
  • McKenzie: 325 babies (MD data) vs. 71 babies (SSA data for MD)
  • Riley: 298 babies (MD data) vs. 118 babies (SSA data for MD)

Intriguing parallels between the MD data and the NYC data do exist. In both locations, Elijah and Isaiah were in the top 10 for African-American boys only, and London, Aaliyah, and Taylor were in the top 10 for African-American girls only.

But if we can’t trust the data, we can’t draw any meaningful conclusions.

Labels like “Caitlin/Kate,” “Sara(h),” “Zoe(y)” and “Lillian/Lily” suggest that variant names were combined here and there. I suspect this is also what happened with Isabel/Isabella, Sophia/Sofia, Aiden, Jayden, MacKenzie, Riley, and maybe even Christopher (perhaps Maryland merged all the “Chris-” names?). What are your thoughts on this?

Source: Maryland’s Top Ten Most Popular Baby Names in 2011 by Race, Ethnicity, and Sex – Open Data Portal – Maryland.gov