How popular is the baby name Sara 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 Sara.

The graph will take a few moments to load. (Don't worry, it shouldn't take 9 months!) If it's taking too long, try reloading the page.


Popularity of the baby name Sara


Posts that mention the name Sara

What influenced the baby name Ovadia in Israel?

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef (1920-2013)
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef

According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, the name Ovadia has become trendy in the Middle Eastern country.

Only 36 baby boys in Israel were named Ovadia in 2012. “However, following the death of spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef in 2013, 117 babies were given this name and in 2014, 209 newborns were named after the rabbi.”

Influential cleric Ovadia Yosef, who founded the ultra-Orthodox Shas party in the mid-1980s, died in October of 2013 at the age of 93.

The baby name Ovadia — the Hebrew form of Obadiah — also saw a modest increase in usage in the United States during the same time frame:

  • 2015: 9 baby boys named Ovadia
  • 2014: 15 baby boys named Ovadia (6 born in NY)
  • 2013: 11 baby boys named Ovadia (9 born in NY)
  • 2012: unlisted
  • 2011: 5 baby boys named Ovadia (all born in NY)

Despite its trendiness, Ovadia wasn’t popular enough to rank among the top Jewish boy names in Israel in 2014:

Top boy names among JewsTop boy names among Muslims
Noam
Ori/Uri
David
Yosef
Eitan
Itay
Ariel
Daniel
Yonatan
Moshe		Muhammad
Yousef
Omar
Abed
Adam
Ali
Ibrahim
Mahmoud
Amir
Haled

And here are Israel’s top girl names:

Top girl names among JewsTop girl names among Muslims
Noa
Tamar
Shira
Maya
Yael
Adele
Talia
Avigail
Ayala
Sara		Miryam
Jana
Lian
Malak
Aline
Lyn
Nur

Of the 176,427 babies born in Israel in 2014, 136,000 (77.1%) were born into Jewish families and 40,427 (22.9%) were born into Arabic families.

Sources:

Image: Adapted from Nomination of the New Chief Rabbis by Dan Hadani collection/National Library of Israel/The Pritzker Family National Photography Collection under CC BY 4.0.

[Latest update: Nov. 2024]

Round-up of multiples from 1944

Badgett quadruplets, born Galveston, Texas, in 1939
Jeraldine, Joan, Jean, and Janet Badgett

Oodles of multiples — eight sets of twins, one set of triplets, six sets of quadruplets, and one set of quintuplets — were featured in an early 1944 issue of LIFE magazine. Most of these multiples had been born in the 1920s and 1930s.

Curious about the names? I knew you would be! Here they are, along with ages and other details.

Twins:

  • Marjorie and Mary Vaughan, 19.
  • Lois and Lucille Barnes, 21.
  • Betty and Lenore Wade, early 20s.
  • Robert “Bobby” and William “Billy” Mauch, 22.
    • They had starred in the 1937 movie The Prince and the Pauper.
  • Blaine and Wayne Rideout, 27.
    • They had been track stars at the University of North Texas in the late 1930s along with another set of twins, Elmer and Delmer Brown.
  • Charles and Horace Hildreth, 41.
    • Horace was elected Governor of Maine later the same year.
  • Ivan and Malvin Albright, 47.
  • Auguste and Jean Piccard, 60.
    • “Honors as the world’s most distinguished pair of twins must go to Jean and Auguste Piccard, stratosphere balloonists, who are so identical that not everyone realizes there are two of them.”

Triplets:

  • Diane Carol, Elizabeth Ann, and Karen Lynn Quist, 11 months.

Quadruplets:

  • Claire (boy), Cleo (boy), Clayton (boy), and Connie (girl) Brown, 3.
  • Janet, Jean, Jeraldine, and Joan Badgett, 5.
    • “The customary alliteration in multiple names accounts for the “J” in Jeraldine.”
  • Felix (boy), Ferdinand (boy), Frances (girl), and Frank (boy) Kasper, 7.
  • James (boy), Jay (boy), Jean (girl), and Joan (girl) Schense, 13.
  • Edna, Wilma, Sarah, and Helen Morlok — the Morlok Quads — 13.
  • Anthony, Bernard, Carl, and Donald Perricone, 14.
    • “Their Beaumont neighbors call them “A,” “B,” “C” and “D” for short.”

Quintuplets:

  • Annette, Cecile, Emilie, Marie, and Yvonne Dionne — the Dionne Quints — 9.

Which of these sets of names do you like best? Why?

Source: “Twins: Accident of Their Birth Sets Them Apart from Other People.” Life 6 Mar. 1944: 91-99.

Image: Clipping from Life magazine (6 Mar. 1944)

Popular baby names in the Netherlands, 2015

Flag of the Netherlands
Flag of the Netherlands

According to data from Sociale Verzekeringsbank (SVB), the most popular baby names in the Netherlands in 2015 were Emma and Liam.

Here are the Netherlands’ top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2015:

Baby Girl NamesBaby Boy Names
1. Emma
2. Julia
3. Sophie
4. Anna
5. Mila
6. Eva
7. Tess
8. Lotte
9. Sara
10. Zoë		1. Liam
2. Sem (a form of Shem)
3. Lucas
4. Luuk
5. Noah
6. Milan
7. Daan
8. Levi
9. Finn
10. Jesse

On the girls’ list, Lotte replaced Isa (which fell from 6th place to 20th).

On the boys’ list, Jesse replaced Bram (which fell from 2nd place to 13th).

Another significant mover of the boys’ list was Liam itself. Liam ranked 17th in 2013, then 9th in 2014, and finally 1st in 2015.

Other names bestowed last year in the Netherlands include Goodluck, Dikshit, Lovelace, Genius, Narbys-Lenay, Rooney, Amen, Islam, Jood, Godmother, Eh, and You.

The top names in 2014 were Sophie and Daan. In 2013, they were Tess and Sem.

Sources: Kindernamen top 20 – SVB, Emma and Liam are most popular Dutch kids names, but what about little Eh?

UPDATE, Nov. 2016: According to Amsterdam University researchers, who took combined spellings into account, the top names of 2015 were Sarah and Luuk. My source didn’t offer the researchers’ full top 10 lists, but here’s what I took from the article:

1. Sarah/Sara/Zara
2. Sophie/Sofie
3. Anne/Anna
4. Lisa/Lize/Lise/Liza

1. Luuk/Luc/Luke
2. Lucas/Lukas
[…]
10. Mohamed/Mohammed/Muhammed/Mohammad

Source: Sarah and Luuk are the most popular Dutch baby names, say university researchers

Image: Adapted from Flag of the Netherlands (public domain)

Popular baby names in Belgium, 2014

Flag of Belgium
Flag of Belgium

According to data from Statistics Belgium, the country’s most popular baby names in 2014 were Emma and Louis.

Here are Belgium’s top 10 baby names:

Girl NamesBoy Names
1. Emma, 653 baby girls
2. Louise, 584
3. Elise, 480
4. Olivia, 459
5. Lina, 383
6. Marie, 376
7. Lucie, 359
8. Ella, 348
9. Alice, 347 (tie)
10. Juliette, 347 (tie)		1. Louis, 622 baby boys
2. Lucas, 619
3. Arthur, 610
4. Adam, 575
5. Noah, 562
6. Liam, 513
7. Mohamed, 468
8. Nathan, 455
9. Jules, 442
10. Mathis, 428

In the girls’ top 10, Ella and Alice replaced Léa and Mila.

The boys’ top 10 includes the same 10 names.

But there’s more! Like Switzerland, Belgium breaks name data down by region. So let’s also check out the top names within each region.

About 58% of Belgians live in the northern region, Flanders, where the official language is Dutch. Here are the top 10 baby names in Flanders:

Girl NamesBoy Names
1. Emma, 381 baby girls
2. Elise, 351
3. Louise, 344
4. Ella, 329
5. Marie, 309
6. Noor, 269
7. Lena, 251
8. Julie, 246
9. Lotte, 231
10. Mila, 227		1. Lucas, 329 baby boys
2. Liam, 316
3. Vince, 309
4. Arthur, 307
5. Noah, 300
6. Finn, 298
7. Mathis, 276
8. Louis, 274
9. Seppe, 248
10. Jules, 244 (tie)
10. Stan, 244 (tie)

In the girls’ top 10, Lena replaced Fien (short for Jozefien, the Dutch form of Josephine).

In the boys’ top 10, Seppe and Jules replaced Lars and Alexander.

I would have guessed that Seppe was a diminutive of Joseph (akin to the German name Sepp). According to a Behind the Name contributor, though, Seppe is a West Frisian name that can be traced back to Sibe, a “Frisian short form of masculine names that have sigu or sigis for a first element” and a second element begins with the letter b (e.g., Sibald, Sibert).

About 32% of Belgians live in the southern region, Wallonia, where the official language is French (and, in some areas, German). Here are the top 10 baby names for Wallonia:

Girl NamesBoy Names
1. Léa, 263 baby girls
2. Lucie, 244
3. Chloé, 218
4. Zoé, 216
5. Emma, 208
6. Louise, 200
7. Alice, 200
8. Camille, 198
9. Olivia, 191
10. Jade, 154		1. Hugo, 314 baby boys
2. Louis, 308
3. Gabriel, 255
4. Arthur, 245
5. Nathan, 242
6. Théo, 235
7. Lucas, 225
8. Ethan, 213
9. Noah, 208
10. Tom, 195

In the girls’ top 10, Jade replaced Manon.

The boys’ top 10 includes the same 10 names.

About 10% of Belgians live in the Brussels Capital Region, where the official languages are Dutch and French. Here are the top top 10 baby names for Brussels:

Girl NamesBoy Names
1. Lina, 119 baby girls
2. Aya, 84
3. Sarah, 78
4. Sofia, 77
5. Nour, 70
6. Yasmine, 67
7. Malak, 66
8. Emma, 64
9. Sara, 62
10. Anna, 56		1. Adam, 233 baby boys
2. Mohamed, 195
3. Rayan, 94
4. Gabriel, 82
5. David, 81
6. Imran, 69
7. Amir, 66
8. Lucas, 65 (tie)
9. Youssef, 65 (tie)
10. Yanis, 59

In the girls’ top 10, Malak and Anna replaced Ines and Louise. In the boy’s top 10, Amir, Lucas and Yanis replaced Ayoub, Nathan and Anas.

Morocco World News notes that “heavy immigration from Morocco and other Muslim countries has left its traces, as Mohamed has been the most common male name in the Brussels Region recently.” Mohamed was the #1 boy name in Brussels from the late 1990s until 2011, in fact. And the same wave of immigration has given a big boost to many other Arabic names (Amir, Bilal, Hamza, Imran, Malak, Nour, Rayan, Yousra, etc.) within the last few decades.

Sources: Steeds meer verschillende voornamen, maar Emma en Louis houden stand, Lina, Aya, and Mohamed Among Most Popular Baby Names in Brussels

Image: Adapted from Flag of Belgium (public domain)