Sam

121,443 people in America carry this name — ranked #463 of 923.

Its American moment came before the war.

Say it SAM

1 syllable · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

S AE1 M — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 121,443 2020 Census
  • Rank #463 Common
  • As a surname 12,973 ranked #2,711 the other way round

Where Sam comes from and what it means

Hebrew in origin, reading literally as “asked of God”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

Sam name popularity by year

126,603 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1918, with 2,528 of them.

80 90 00 10 20s 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 00 10 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 1920s.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

What goes well after Sam

One syllable, so a longer middle name gives the whole a rhythm.

Better avoided

  • Sam Michael — runs together
  • Sam Matthew — runs together
  • Sam Steven — same opening

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

What Sam is short for

Sam is a short form of Samuel.

Short forms as recorded in a 19th-century glossary of Christian names, so the list is old rather than complete.

Never out of use

Sam has been given in every decade on record — no fashion lifted it and none has dropped it.

Is Sam used for boys or for girls?

91.9% men
9,888 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

Full names people carry

The census counts first names and surnames separately and never together, so these are estimates: how often the two halves would meet if they paired at random. They do not — names cluster by community — so read them as an order of magnitude, not a headcount.

The same name abroad

  • Samel Esth
  • Schmul German
  • Samuls Lett
  • Samuil Wall
  • Samuel Ger.|Eng.|Fr
  • Sammel Swiss
  • Sameli Swiss
  • Samuele Italian
  • Zomelis Lett
  • Schombel Lus

Forms of one name traced to the same root. Spellings are as the glossary printed them, so some look older than the versions in use today.

Where the name Sam is most common in the US

In Utah the name is given 1.5 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Utah ×1.5
  • New York ×1.4
  • Mississippi ×1.4
  • Washington ×1.3
  • Illinois ×1.3

Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

Names built the same way as Sam

Ends on the same sound

Same rhythm — 1 syllables, stress on the first

Matched on phonemes, not spelling, so the lists follow the ear rather than the page.

Try it Name Matcher

Enter a surname and hear which first names sit well with it.

The matcher is confident about clashes — rhymes, doubled sounds, colliding stresses — because those are facts about the phonemes. Ordering the names that pass is a set of rules, not a verdict on beauty.

Open Name Matcher on its own page

Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
  • Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers
Other names of Hebrew origin