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Girl · English pet form of a Hebrew name
Sally
Say it: SAL-ee
Meaning
A pet form of Sarah, from Hebrew sarah 'princess, noblewoman'.
Certainscholars agree on this meaning.
Used in England and colonial America since the 1700s.
Its wave through time
Fading since the 1930s
In the United States
- 204,901 babies given this name since 1880
- At its height in 1938, about 1 in 258 girls
- 199 babies in 2020
Through the ages
- The Colonial Americas1500 to 1800
- The Age of Revolutions1750 to 1837
- Victorian and Belle Époque1837 to 1914
- The Modern Age1880 to today
Used by
The family of the name
Other spellings: Sallie
Famous bearers
- Sally Ride, American astronaut
Names worth a look
Where this comes from
- Parish baptism registers
- Colonial records of the Americas
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.
Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.