Salah
A masculine Arabic name meaning "pious" or "devout".
Name Census estimates that about 1,111 living Americans carry the first name Salah. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 84.6% of registrations being male. The average person named Salah today is around 17 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Salah births was 2024 (62 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Salah. 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 Salah with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Salah is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 17 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
1.1K
~ 1 in 308,510 Americans
Peak year
2024
62 babies that year
Average age
17
years old
2024 SSA rank
#3,497
Tracked since 1972
Census
Salah in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 3,053 people with the first name Salah, which placed it at #5,567 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
#5,567
National first-name rank
People counted
3.1K
3,053 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
1.0
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
65.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Salah
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Salah is White at 65.3%. The next largest groups are Black (21.6%) and Two or More Races (6.6%). 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 Salah 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 Salah at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White65.3% · 1,995
- Black or African American21.6% · 658
- Two or more races6.6% · 200
- Asian and Pacific Islander4.6% · 140
- Hispanic or Latino1.8% · 54
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.2% · 6
Gender
Gender distribution for Salah
Salah leans heavily male at 84.6% of total registrations, but 173 girls have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Salah as a male name
- Ranked #3,497 in 2024
- 33 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2019 (49 births)
Salah as a female name
- Ranked #4,743 in 2024
- 29 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2024 (29 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Salah leans strongly male. 2,903 people counted with this name were male (95.1%), compared with 149 female bearers (4.9%).
Popularity
Salah: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Salah from the 1970s through to the 2020s, spanning 6 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 340 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Salah remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Salah 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 Salah during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Salahs live
The SSA's state-level files cover 7 states and territories. New York, Minnesota, Texas recorded the most babies named Salah, while Ohio, Michigan, Illinois recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 17 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Salah
The name Salah originates from the Arabic language and has its roots in the word "salah" which means prayer or supplication in Arabic. The name is believed to have first emerged in the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East region during the early days of Islam, around the 7th century AD.
The name Salah holds significant religious and cultural significance in the Islamic faith. It is one of the five pillars of Islam and refers to the obligatory daily prayers that Muslims perform five times a day, facing the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca. The name is closely associated with the principles of devotion, obedience, and submission to God.
One of the earliest recorded mentions of the name Salah can be found in the Quran, the holy book of Islam. The word "salah" appears numerous times in the Quran, emphasizing the importance of prayer in the Islamic faith. Additionally, the name is found in various historical Islamic texts and records, reflecting its widespread use among Arab and Muslim communities.
Throughout history, several prominent figures have borne the name Salah. One of the most notable is Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, also known as Saladin (1137-1193), a Kurdish Muslim sultan who led the Muslim forces during the Crusades and recaptured Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187. His military prowess and chivalry made him a legendary figure in both Muslim and Christian histories.
Another famous bearer of the name Salah was Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi (1138-1193), a Kurdish military leader and the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. He was a contemporary of Saladin and played a significant role in the battles against the Crusaders.
In the 13th century, Salah al-Din Khalil ibn Aybak al-Tawil (1240-1249) was a Kurdish sultan of Egypt and the founder of the Bahri Mamluk dynasty. He is known for his successful military campaigns against the Crusaders and for his efforts in strengthening the Mamluk Sultanate.
More recently, Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury (born 1962) is a Bangladeshi writer, journalist, and human rights activist who has advocated for interfaith harmony and religious freedom in his country.
Salah Abdeslam (born 1989) is a French national of Moroccan descent who was convicted for his involvement in the 2015 Paris attacks, which were a series of coordinated terrorist attacks that claimed the lives of 130 people.
People
Salah + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Salah 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
Salah: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Salah?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 1,111 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Salah 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 308,510 US residents.
Is Salah a common name?
We classify Salah as "Rare". It ranks above 90.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,127 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Salah most popular?
The single biggest year for Salah was 2024, when 62 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Salah is about 17 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Salah in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 3,053 people with the name Salah, or 1.01 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #5,567 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 Salah 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 Salah?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Salah leans strongly male. 2,903 people counted with this name were male (95.1%), compared with 149 female bearers (4.9%). 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 Salah?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Salah is White at 65.3%. The next largest groups are Black (21.6%) and Two or More Races (6.6%). 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 Salah most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Salah in the 2020 Census, accounting for 65.3% (1,995 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 Salah in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Salah a male name?
Yes, 84.6% of people registered as Salah in the SSA data are male. 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 Salah still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Salah 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 Salah 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 people have the name Salah?
If you just want to know how many people share the name Salah, HowManyOfMe.org gives you the headline number in one glance.