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Safiya

#1,333 in 2025Girls' name

From Arabic صَفِيَّة; literal meaning unconfirmed

Safiya has been given to 2,831 babies in the U.S. since 1973. In 2025 it ranked #1,333 of 17,293 girls’ names in use. Its peak year was 2025, with 168 recorded.

Babies named Safiya, 2025

1 in 19,700

Safiya over time, 1880–2025

Girls
05010015020018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Safiya: meaning, origin, and history

From Arabic صَفِيَّة; literal meaning unconfirmed

Arabic

What Safiya means

Safiya is a given name.

Origin, language, and formation

Safiya is used in Swahili. Its origins include Arabic.

Safiya comes through Arabic صَفِيَّة.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 2,831 girls were recorded with the name Safiya between 1973 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 168 in 2025; its best national rank was #1,333 in 2025.

Over 5 years its rank rose, from #1,880 in 2020 to #1,333 in 2025. Over 10 years its rank rose, from #2,642 in 2015 to #1,333 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 Safiya?

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

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 19,700
168 of 3,315,165 births
Among girls only
1 in 9,570
0.01% of girls
Rank, 2025
#1,333
of 17,293 girls’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
13,679 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Safiya 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 5002%

Put another way: gather 13,679 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Safiya. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Safiyas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Safiya was born before 2013 — so the typical Safiya is around 12 today.

Median birth year
2013
About 12 years old
Biggest decade
2020s
31.4% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
76.5%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
2,831
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

2020s — 31.4% of all recorded uses (889).

Is Safiya 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
+60
Places climbed
Rank vs 5 years ago
+547
Places climbed
Rank vs 10 years ago
+1,309
Places climbed
Births vs 10 years ago
2.47×
More babies than then
Share of its own peak
100.0%
Peak was 2025 (168)
Years since peak
Peaking now
At its all-time high
Year-to-year steadiness
Steady
10.9% average annual change
Best rank ever
#1,333
2025

Spellings of Safiya

Safiya is not the most common spelling — Sofia is, with 41.1% against Safiya's 0.62%.

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 Safiya is used

Across 2016–2025, Safiya was most concentrated in New York — about 1 in 3,030 girls, against 1 in 10,898 across all states with data. It was least common in Washington (1 in 50,000).

233 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1New York1 in 3,030
  2. 2Pennsylvania1 in 5,882
  3. 3Illinois1 in 6,250
  4. 4Minnesota1 in 11,111
  5. 5Ohio1 in 11,111
  6. 6New Jersey1 in 12,500
  7. 7Virginia1 in 14,286
  8. 8California1 in 16,667

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.

Safiya around the world

Where Safiya 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
    #455
    in 2025
  • Scotland
    2012–2025
    #780
    in 2025
  • Northern Ireland
    2012–2012
    #383
    in 2012
  • Ireland
    2014–2024
    #736
    in 2024
  • France
    1967–2025
    #178
    in 2025
  • Canada
    1991–2024
    #772
    in 2024
  • South Australia
    1991–2013
    #403
    in 2013

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

Notable people named Safiya

People whose public names include Safiya, backed by Wikidata given-name records and ordered by linked Wikimedia pages. The name may be a middle name.

People data from Wikidata (CC0). Fame is measured, not judged — the order reflects how widely each person is documented, not the U.S. birth records popularity this page is otherwise about.

Safiya by the numbers

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

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
#1,333
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
Up 547
Best rank ever
#1,333
2025
Peak year
2025
168 that year
First recorded
1973
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
2,831
Count in 2025
168

Names similar to Safiya

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

SafiaMariyaMakiyaAlaiyaMaliyaLaniyaKaniyaSaffiyaZakiyaJamiyaKamiyaZaniyaAnaiyaSafaZariyaSamiyaAmaiyaShriyaTamiyaNakiyaSariyaDaniyaRaniyaTaniya

Names with a curve like Safiya

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Safiya, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

YehudisHalimaZarahRivkyRoriHindyMalkyIrinaRaineGiuliaJannahRaizy

Sibling names for Safiya

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 Safiya

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