← Back to The High and Late Middle Ages
Girl · Hebrew
Sarah
Say it: SAIR-uh
Meaning
Hebrew Sarah, 'princess, noblewoman', from sar 'prince'. In Genesis she is first called Sarai, an older form of the same name.
Certainscholars agree on this meaning.
Rare among medieval Christians, it became common in England after the Reformation and among the Puritans of New England.
Its wave through time
Fading since the 1980s
In the United States
- 1,087,607 babies given this name since 1880
- At its height in 1981, about 1 in 59 girls
- 3,033 babies in 2020
Through the ages
- The Biblical WorldAbout 1200 BC to AD 100
- The High and Late Middle Ages1100 to 1450
- The Renaissance1400 to 1600
- The Colonial Americas1500 to 1800
- The Age of Revolutions1750 to 1837
- Victorian and Belle Époque1837 to 1914
- The Modern Age1880 to today
Used by
HebrewEarly ChristianEnglishAmericanFrenchGermanSpanishItalianPortuguese
The family of the name
Other spellings: Sara, Sarai, Sarra
| Italian | Sara |
|---|---|
| Spanish | Sara |
| Portuguese | Sara |
| German | Sara |
| Russian | Sarra |
| Hungarian | Sára |
| French | Sarah |
Famous bearers
- Sarah, wife of Abraham in Genesis
- Sarah Bernhardt, French actress
Names worth a look
Where this comes from
- The Hebrew Bible and the New Testament
- Puritan church and town records of England and New England
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
- English poll taxes and lay subsidy rolls (13th and 14th centuries)
- Parish baptism registers
- 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.