Sabrina
A feminine name of uncertain origin, possibly from the Gaelic "saor rabhann" meaning "blessed".
Name Census estimates that about 133,035 living Americans carry the first name Sabrina. It sits at #357 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Sabrina today is around 36 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Sabrina births was 1997 (5,823 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Sabrina. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Sabrina with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Sabrina is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 347 boys registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
133K
~ 1 in 2,576 Americans
Peak year
1997
5,823 babies that year
Average age
36
years old
2005 SSA rank
#357
Tracked since 1916
Census
Sabrina in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 125,164 people with the first name Sabrina, which placed it at #451 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#451
National first-name rank
People counted
125K
125,164 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
41.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
49.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Sabrina
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Sabrina is White at 49.3%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (22.2%) and Black (17.2%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Sabrina described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Sabrina at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White49.3% · 61,681
- Hispanic or Latino22.2% · 27,728
- Black or African American17.2% · 21,562
- Asian and Pacific Islander5.5% · 6,869
- Two or more races5.1% · 6,396
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.7% · 928
Gender
Gender distribution for Sabrina
Out of the 141,980 babies given the name Sabrina since 1880, 99.8% were registered as female. The name sits firmly on the female side of the spectrum, with only a handful of male registrations across the entire dataset.
Sabrina as a male name
- Ranked #12,989 in 2005
- 5 male births in 2005
- Peak: 1977 (23 births)
Sabrina as a female name
- Ranked #357 in 2024
- 869 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1997 (5,816 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Sabrina appears almost entirely female. Of the 125,167 people counted with this name, 99.9% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Sabrina: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Sabrina from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 11 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 38,746 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1990s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Sabrina by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Sabrina during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Sabrinas live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, New York, Texas recorded the most babies named Sabrina, while South Dakota, Wyoming, Vermont recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 2,746 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Sabrina
The name Sabrina is thought to have originated from the Sabine region of ancient Italy, derived from the Latin word "Sabinus" meaning "from the Sabine people." The Sabines were an ancient Italic tribe that inhabited the central Apennine region of the Italian peninsula. The name is believed to have first appeared in written records during the Roman era, around the 1st century AD.
One of the earliest known references to the name Sabrina can be found in the writings of the Roman poet Ovid, who mentioned a mythological figure named Sabrina in his work "Metamorphoses." According to the story, Sabrina was a river nymph or goddess who was drowned in a river by her jealous stepmother. The river was subsequently named after her.
In the medieval period, the name Sabrina gained popularity in Britain, particularly in Wales, where it was associated with the legend of the Welsh princess Sabrina, who was said to have lived in the 5th century AD. According to the legend, Sabrina was the daughter of Locrine, the eldest son of the legendary British king Brutus. The city of Bath, England, is believed to have been named after her, as it was originally called "Caer Badarn" or "Sabrina's City."
One of the earliest recorded individuals with the name Sabrina was Sabrina Calderini (1591-1672), an Italian writer and poet from the Renaissance period. Another notable Sabrina from history was Sabrina Sidney (1617-1654), an English writer and the daughter of the renowned poet and courtier Sir Philip Sidney.
In the 19th century, the name gained popularity in literature, most notably in the work of John Milton, who wrote about the legend of Sabrina in his masque "Comus." The name was also used by the English novelist Samuel Richardson for the character Sabrina Louisa Morland in his novel "The History of Sir Charles Grandison" (1753).
Other notable individuals named Sabrina throughout history include Sabrina Spellman, a fictional character from the Archie Comics series; Sabrina Le Beauf (born 1958), an American actress known for her role in "The Cosby Show"; Sabrina Salerno (born 1968), an Italian singer and actress; and Sabrina Ionescu (born 1997), an American professional basketball player.
People
Sabrina + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Sabrina as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with S
Other first names starting with S with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Sabrina: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Sabrina?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 133,035 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Sabrina going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 2,576 US residents.
Is Sabrina a common name?
We classify Sabrina as "Common". It ranks above 99.6% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 141,980 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Sabrina most popular?
The single biggest year for Sabrina was 1997, when 5,823 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Sabrina is about 36 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Sabrina in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 125,164 people with the name Sabrina, or 41.44 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #451 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Sabrina in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Sabrina?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Sabrina appears almost entirely female. Of the 125,167 people counted with this name, 99.9% were female and only a very small share were male. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Sabrina?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Sabrina is White at 49.3%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (22.2%) and Black (17.2%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Sabrina most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Sabrina in the 2020 Census, accounting for 49.3% (61,681 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Sabrina in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Sabrina a female name?
Yes, 99.8% of people registered as Sabrina in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Sabrina still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Sabrina in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Sabrina can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many Americans are named Sabrina?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.