Sanam — girls' name
492 babies named Sanam in U.S. Social Security records since 1979, with the highest year being 1997. Year-by-year trend, decade aggregates, and state-level rankings drawn from federal birth data.
32% of everyone ever named Sanam was born in this single decade.
25 babies were named Sanam in 1997 — its busiest year on record.
What the Data Says About Sanam
The Social Security Administration has registered 492 babies named Sanam between 1979 and 2023, spanning 45 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a girl's name, Sanam currently falls outside the top 1,000 girls' names for 2023. The name reached its historical peak in 1997, when 25 babies received it in a single year.
Decade-level aggregation shows that Sanam performed strongest in the 1990s, accumulating 156 births during that ten-year window. Across the 6 decades of recorded activity, Sanam shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in California, which accounts for 117 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by New York. In total, SSA state-level files list Sanam in 2 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.
No etymological entry is currently available for Sanam in our reference dataset. These figures derive from SSA's annual national and state-level name files, which include any name appearing at least five times in a given year or state-year; names below that threshold are suppressed for privacy and therefore excluded from the totals shown here. The 492 total represents a lower bound — actual usage may be higher in years or states where the count fell below the disclosure floor. This page is provided for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute personal, legal, or naming advice.
Sanam at a glance
Last recorded 2023Peak year
Current rank
Active since
Sanam popularity over time
Annual U.S. births registered with the Social Security Administration · 2023–1979
- Peak year (1997)
- 25
- Annual births at peak — across 45 years of records
No longer in the modern top-1000 — last recorded 2023.
492 total births across 45 years of SSA records. Peaked in 1997 with 25 births in a single year.
Sanam by decade
Total births in each ten-year window — peak vs trough at a glance
- Peak decade
- 1990s
- 156 births that decade — 32% of Sanam's all-time total
Sanam decade highlights
- Peak decade 156 births
- Runner-up 108 births
- Modern era share 2010s + 2020s
- Decades tracked with recorded births
1990s was Sanam's strongest decade
156 babies received the name during that ten-year window — about 32% of all-time use.
Sanam by state
Where Sanam concentrates geographically — total births since 1979
| Rank | State | Visual share | Births | Share of total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | California | | 117 | 23.8% |
| #2 | New York | | 11 | 2.2% |
117 of 492 births nationwide. Compared to a flat distribution across 2 reporting states.
Top 5 states
- California 23.8% of nationwide
- New York 2.2% of nationwide
Recorded in 2 of 51 SSA jurisdictions
California accounts for 23.8% of all recorded births nationwide — a strong regional concentration for this name.
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Data Sources
Data as of 2024. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA).
Primary: Source: U.S. Social Security Administration, Baby Names from Social Security Card Applications — National Data, 1979–2023 (ssa.gov/oact/babynames). National-level data includes all names with 5 or more occurrences in a given year.
State-level: Source: U.S. Social Security Administration, Baby Names — State-Level Files (namesbystate.zip). Includes all names with 5 or more occurrences per state per year; rarer names are excluded for privacy.