Sara
- Pronunciation
- [Sa-ra]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- From Sarah In The Bible (Princess)
- Origin
- Arabic
About the Name Sara
Sara is the alternate English spelling of Sarah (see separate entry on Sarah for the Hebrew etymology meaning "princess" or "noblewoman"). The Sara spelling without the H is the more common form across Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, Scandinavian, and most other European naming traditions.
The two spellings are tracked separately by SSA and represent the same biblical Hebrew name. The Sara spelling reads as more international and slightly more contemporary, while Sarah reads as more traditional English-language. Combined, the two spellings have been continuously among the most-popular American girls' names for over a century.
Notable bearers include American author Sara Teasdale (1884–1933, Pulitzer Prize for Love Songs, 1918), American novelist Sara Paretsky (founder of the contemporary American mystery genre and the V. I. Warshawski detective series), and contemporary American singer Sara Bareilles ("Brave," "Love Song," Tony Award nominee for the musical Waitress). The Spanish-language American singer Sara Evans (country music) has also anchored the Sara spelling in 21st-century American naming.
Sara's American climb has paralleled Sarah's, with the combined Sarah-Sara family holding a US top-25 girls' rank for over three decades. The Sara spelling specifically holds a top-300 range. The name's appeal is the same as Sarah's underlying — biblical depth, dignified classical register, two soft syllables — combined with the slightly more international visual register of the H-less spelling. Common nicknames Sara itself rarely shortens, but Sare, Sari, and the rare Sasa each occasionally appear; the longer formal Sarah is sometimes used as Sara's official-document version. International forms include Sarah (English), Sara (Spanish/Italian/Greek/Scandinavian, identical), Sarra (Russian), Sarai (the original Hebrew pre-covenant name), and Zara (a related but distinct name).
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Sara
US Popularity History (1973–2025)
Annual US births named Sara by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1981 with 11,358 girls named Sara (girl rank #26 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #198 for girls (1,568 US births). That's 172 places below its 1981 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Sara Most Popular?
Average girl-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Sara the strongest states are New Jersey, New York, Florida.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Jersey | #36 | 1,465 |
| 2 | New York | #54 | 2,192 |
| 3 | Florida | #156 | 1,017 |
| 4 | California | #170 | 1,867 |
| 5 | Delaware | #172 | 19 |
| 6 | Maryland | #174 | 304 |
| 7 | Texas | #178 | 1,621 |
| 8 | Alabama | #179 | 252 |
| 9 | District of Columbia | #185 | 51 |
| 10 | Virginia | #199 | 377 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Sara in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
Looking for names like Sara?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Sara to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Sara against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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