Susan
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Lily Diminutive Of Susannah Also Used As An Independent Name. In The Apocryphal Book Of Tobit Susannah Courageously Defended Herself Against Wrongful Accusation. White Lilies Grew In The Biblical City Of Susa In Persia.
- Origin
- Hebrew
About the Name Susan
Susan is an English form of the Hebrew Shoshannah, meaning "lily" — a flower that grew abundantly in the ancient Persian city of Susa and became a symbol of purity and beauty in biblical poetry. The name also appears in the deuterocanonical Book of Tobit, where Susannah courageously defends herself against a wrongful accusation, giving the name an early association with moral courage alongside its botanical elegance. The short form Susan emerged in English from the fuller Susannah and Susanna and has been in use as an independent name for centuries.
Susan appears in the SSA top-1000 from 1880 — the earliest year the SSA tracked names — and reached its national peak of #2 in 1957, accumulating more than 1,066,000 recorded top-1000 births over its long chart lifespan. Susan Sontag (1933–2004) was an American writer, critic, filmmaker, and political activist whose essays helped reshape American intellectual culture in the second half of the twentieth century. Susan last appeared in the SSA top-1000 in 2020, at rank #975, marking nearly a century and a half of continuous or near-continuous chart presence.
The name today feels like a confident vintage classic — crisp, two-syllable, and loaded with mid-century American cultural memory. Its longevity across more than a century of SSA charts is itself remarkable. Recorded variants span a wide range of international forms and nicknames: Sue, Sukie, Susana, Susanna, Susanne, Susi, Susie, Suzanne, Suze, Suzette, Suzi, Suzie, Suzy, and Zsazsa.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Susan
US Popularity History (1880–2020)
Annual US births named Susan by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1955 with 47,419 girls named Susan (girl rank #5 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2020, ranked #975 for girls (262 US births). That's 970 places below its 1955 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 Susan 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 Susan the strongest states are Pennsylvania, Utah, Missouri.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pennsylvania | #423 | 252 |
| 2 | Utah | #627 | 29 |
| 3 | Missouri | #656 | 37 |
| 4 | Wisconsin | #678 | 55 |
| 5 | South Carolina | #685 | 21 |
| 6 | Ohio | #710 | 136 |
| 7 | Virginia | #720 | 43 |
| 8 | Indiana | #793 | 60 |
| 9 | New York | #796 | 129 |
| 10 | Minnesota | #850 | 18 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Illinois | #1,108 | 28 |
| 2 | New Jersey | #987 | 38 |
| 3 | Massachusetts | #980 | 15 |
| 4 | Alabama | #883 | 22 |
| 5 | Michigan | #872 | 45 |
| 6 | Minnesota | #850 | 18 |
| 7 | New York | #796 | 129 |
| 8 | Indiana | #793 | 60 |
| 9 | Virginia | #720 | 43 |
| 10 | Ohio | #710 | 136 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Susan in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sue | Lily | Female | Hebrew |
| Susana | Lily Variant Of Hebrew Susannah. In The Apocryphal Book Of Tobit Susannah Courageously Defended Herself Against Wrongful Accusation. White Lilies Grew In The Biblical City Of Susa In Persia. | Female | Spanish |
| Susanna | Graceful Lily In The Apocryphal Book Of Tobit Susannah Courageously Defended Herself Against Wrongful Accusation. White Lilies Grew In The Biblical City Of Susa In Persia. | Female | Hebrew |
| Susanne | Lily. Variant Of Hebrew Susannah. In The Apocryphal Book Of Tobit Susannah Courageously Defended Herself Against Wrongful Accusation. White Lilies Grew In The Biblical City Of Susa In Persia. | Female | French |
| Susie | Lily. Variant Of Hebrew Susannah. In The Apocryphal Book Of Tobit Susannah Courageously Defended Herself Against Wrongful Accusation. White Lilies Grew In The Biblical City Of Susa In Persia. | Female | English |
| Suzanne | Lily Variant Of Hebrew Susannah. In The Apocryphal Book Of Tobit Susannah Courageously Defended Herself Against Wrongful Accusation. White Lilies Grew In The Biblical City Of Susa In Persia. | Female | German |
| Suzette | Lily. Variant Of Hebrew Susannah. In The Apocryphal Book Of Tobit Susannah Courageously Defended Herself Against Wrongful Accusation. White Lilies Grew In The Biblical City Of Susa In Persia. | Female | French |
| Suzy | Lily. Variant Of Susannah. In The Apocryphal Book Of Tobit Susannah Courageously Defended Herself Against Wrongful Accusation. White Lilies Grew In The Biblical City Of Susa In Persia. | Female | English |
Famous People Named Susan
1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Susan.
- Susan Sontag is an American critical essayist, cultural analyst, novelist, political activist, filmmaker and playwright of international repute.
Looking for names like Susan?
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 Susan to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Susan 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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