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Sabah

#12,934 in 2025Girls' name

Morning + to be beautiful, to be radiant

Sabah has been given to 529 babies in the U.S. since 1968. In 2025 it ranked #12,934 of 17,293 girls’ names in use. Its peak year was 1996, with 22 recorded.

Babies named Sabah, 2025

1 in 474,000

Sabah over time, 1880–2025

Girls
010203018801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Sabah: meaning, origin, and history

Morning + to be beautiful, to be radiant

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Sabah means

Sabah means “morning + to be beautiful, to be radiant”.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Sabah is used in Arabic and Turkish.

Another recorded pronunciation is /sˤa.ˈbaːħ/ for Sabah.

Origin, language, and formation

Sabah is used in Albanian.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 529 girls were recorded with the name Sabah between 1968 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 22 in 1996; its best national rank was #4,700 in 1996.

Over 5 years its rank fell, from #10,934 in 2020 to #12,934 in 2025. Over 10 years its rank fell, from #11,667 in 2015 to #12,934 in 2025.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Sabah?

Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 474,000
7 of 3,315,165 births
Among girls only
1 in 230,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2025
#12,934
of 17,293 girls’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
328,272 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Sabah sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2025 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 328,272 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Sabah. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Sabahs were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Sabah was born before 1999 — so the typical Sabah is around 26 today.

Median birth year
1999
About 26 years old
Biggest decade
1990s
29.9% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
46.5%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
529
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1990s — 29.9% of all recorded uses (158).

Is Sabah rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
+2,013
Places climbed
Rank vs 5 years ago
−2,000
Places dropped
Rank vs 10 years ago
−1,267
Places dropped
Births vs 10 years ago
0.78×
Fewer babies than then
Share of its own peak
31.8%
Peak was 1996 (22)
Years since peak
29
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
22.8% average annual change
Best rank ever
#4,700
1996

Spellings of Sabah

Sabah is not the most common spelling — Sarah is, with 64.4% against Sabah's 0.03%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Sabah is used

Across 1910–2025, Sabah was most concentrated in California — about 1 in — girls, against 1 in 483,376 across all states with data. It was least common in New York (1 in —).

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1California1 in —
  2. 2New York1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Sabah has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Sabah around the world

Where Sabah ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • England & Wales
    1996–2025
    #4,201
    in 2025
  • Scotland
    1990–2003
    #667
    in 2003
  • France
    1956–2025
    #2,228
    in 2025
  • Canada
    1994–2019
    #3,370
    in 2019
  • South Australia
    2003–2009
    #818
    in 2009

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, National Records of Scotland, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS, NRS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Sabah by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
#12,934
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
Down 2,000
Best rank ever
#4,700
1996
Peak year
1996
22 that year
First recorded
1968
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
529
Count in 2025
7

Names similar to Sabah

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

SabreSabrinSableSabihaHibahSabreenSabriyaSabaSabrynaSabraSabellaSabirinSabineSabriaSabreeSabelSabeenSabiraSabrynSabrineSaberSabreaSabarSabina

Sibling names for Sabah

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Sabah

Top names of 1996, Sabah's peak yearThe 1990s in fullOther names that peaked in 1996Girls' names starting with S