Sabrina

What does Sabrina mean?

Sabrina is the Latin form of the River Severn's Welsh name, Habren. The river name's deeper meaning is unknown. Its story, however, is unusually rich: a legendary princess, a water nymph, a Hollywood heroine, and a teenage witch have all carried Sabrina into different kinds of storytelling.

English commonly gives the name three syllables, with the stress in the middle. It is also used in several other European languages, including Italian, French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese.

A river and a legendary princess

In Geoffrey of Monmouth's account, Sabrina was a princess drowned in the Severn, with the river supposedly taking her name. The more likely direction is the reverse: the older river name supplied the princess's name within the legend.

John Milton later made Sabrina a water nymph in his masque Comus, performed in 1634. This literary history connects the name with the Severn long before its modern screen appearances.

In Indonesian use, Sabrina also acquired an Arabic association through a reinterpretation involving the root for patience. That later connection developed from the European name rather than replacing its older river history. Shabrina is a related Indonesian spelling.

Sabrina on the Hollywood screen

The 1953 play Sabrina Fair brought the name renewed attention. Billy Wilder's film adaptation, Sabrina, followed in 1954, with Audrey Hepburn playing Sabrina Fairchild.

Sabrina is the daughter of the Larrabee family's chauffeur. After returning from Paris, she attracts the attention of the family's two wealthy brothers, played by Humphrey Bogart and William Holden. The romantic comedy gave Sabrina a glamorous modern setting alongside its much older literary associations.

Hepburn's character remains one of the name's most recognizable film connections. The surname Fairchild also distinguishes her from the very different Sabrina who appeared in comics a few years later.

Sabrina Spellman and a double life

Sabrina Spellman first appeared in Archie's Madhouse No. 22 in 1962. Her stories follow a teenage witch balancing ordinary responsibilities with life in the magical world.

Her aunts Hilda and Zelda and her cat Salem form part of the familiar supporting cast. Television adaptations brought the character to further audiences, including the live-action series that began in 1996.

The character's long history across comics and television gives Sabrina an enduring supernatural association, alongside the romance of the earlier film.

Pronunciation and related spellings

English Sabrina is pronounced suh-BREE-nuh. Italian and Spanish also stress the middle syllable, with a clearer ah sound in the first and last syllables.

Sabryna is an English spelling variant. Habren is the older Welsh river-name connection, while Shabrina belongs to the Indonesian naming tradition.

Sabrina in the United States

Sabrina reached both its largest American girls' count and its best rank in 1997, with 5,816 babies and a position of No. 53. It ranked No. 321 in 2025, compared with No. 388 in 2020. Its strongest American period followed decades of visibility in film, comics, and television.

How popular is Sabrina?

In 2025, Sabrina ranked #321 among girls in the United States, with 956 recorded uses. The U.S. birth records first list this spelling for girls in 1916; its largest annual count was 5,816 in 1997. Rankings count each spelling separately. They describe national use, so local familiarity can differ. The popularity chart shows whether the name has remained common, returned after a quieter period, or risen recently.