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Sayaka

Girls' name

Japanese name; meaning depends on kanji

Sayaka has been given to 213 babies in the U.S. since 1979. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 2000, with 15 recorded.

Babies named Sayaka, 2017

1 in 596,000

Sayaka over time, 1880–2025

Girls
05101518801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Sayaka: meaning, origin, and history

Japanese name; meaning depends on kanji

Japanese

What Sayaka means

Sayaka is documented with more than one possible Japanese character combination. The Latin-letter spelling records a pronunciation; it does not specify one unique kanji spelling or one universal meaning.

Possible character meanings include sand, thread, silk, also, fragrance.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Sayaka is used in Japanese.

Another recorded pronunciation is /sä.jä.kä/ for Sayaka.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 213 girls were recorded with the name Sayaka between 1979 and 2017. Its highest annual count was 15 in 2000; its best national rank was #7,084 in 2000.

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.

How common is Sayaka?

Sayaka had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2017, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2017
1 in 596,000
6 of 3,577,106 births
Among girls only
1 in 288,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2017
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
413,245 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Sayaka 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 2017 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 413,245 children born in 2017 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Sayaka. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Sayakas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Sayaka was born before 1997 — so the typical Sayaka is around 28 today.

Median birth year
1997
About 28 years old
Biggest decade
1990s
39.0% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
70.0%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
213
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1990s — 39.0% of all recorded uses (83).

Is Sayaka 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
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 2000 (15)
Years since peak
25
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
46.1% average annual change
Best rank ever
#7,084
2000

Spellings of Sayaka

Sayaka is not the most common spelling — Samara is, with 25.6% against Sayaka's 0.24%.

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 Sayaka is used

Across 1910–2025, Sayaka was most concentrated in California — about 1 in — girls, against 1 in 1,334,398 across all states with data.

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1California1 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. Sayaka has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Sayaka around the world

Where Sayaka 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.

  • France
    2012–2012
    #7,391
    in 2012

Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0.

Sayaka by the numbers

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

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#7,084
2000
Peak year
2000
15 that year
First recorded
1979
Last recorded
2017
All-time count
213
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Sayaka

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

SayanaSayaniSaylemSayoriSayleeSaylahSayoraSaydieSaydaSayumiSaylerSaydiSayyoraSaygeSayshaSayuriSaydeSaydeeSaylarSaylaAnnakaSaywardTamakaSayra

Sibling names for Sayaka

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 Sayaka

Top names of 2000, Sayaka's peak yearThe 2000s in fullOther names that peaked in 2000Girls' names starting with S