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Sarai vs Sophia

How Sarai and Sophia compare across 146 years of US Social Security Administration baby-name records — popularity history, peak years, current rank, and which name overtook which.

Open Name Tournament

Sarai

Female · Hebrew

Meaning: Argumentative

Sophia

Female · Greek

Meaning: Wise

US Popularity History — Side-by-Side

Annual US births named Sarai (girls) vs Sophia (girls), from US Social Security Administration national records.

Source: US Social Security Administration. Names appearing fewer than 5 times per year are suppressed by SSA.

Quick Stats

Metric Sarai Sophia
Peak year (most US births) 2007 — 818 girls 2012 — 22,335 girls
Peak rank #398 #1
Most recent rank (2025) #425 (733 births) #5 (12,561 births)
Total US births since 1880 17,976 388,433
Last 10 years (2016–2025) 7,101 133,616

Peak comparison takeaway

At its all-time peak, Sophia reached 22,335 US births in 2012 — 21,517 more than Sarai's peak count.

Strongest States — Last 10 Years

States where each name ranked highest, from SSA's state-level dataset. Lower average rank = name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name list.

Sarai — top 5 states

#StateAvg rankBirths
1 Hawaii #188 51
2 District of Columbia #211 33
3 Florida #261 651
4 New Mexico #279 31
5 New York #281 585

Sophia — top 5 states

#StateAvg rankBirths
1 New Mexico #3 769
2 New York #3 8,010
3 Illinois #3 4,861
4 Arizona #4 3,118
5 Massachusetts #4 2,790

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Data & methodology

Source: US Social Security Administration national baby names dataset 1880–2025 (CC0 public domain). Names with fewer than 5 occurrences in a given year are suppressed by SSA. State-level coverage runs 1910–2025. Crossover detection compares annual birth counts (not ranks) for each year both names appear. Methodology: see full notes. More comparisons →