Saba
A surname with several possible origins, including a connection to the biblical saint Sabas and a name used in medieval English and French records.
The #8,822 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 83,175 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The surname may come from the personal name Sabas, especially in French usage where it is linked to Saint Sabas. Some old English and Norman records also show Saba as a medieval given name or byname, which could later become a surname. In older French scholarship, Saba is also treated as a related form in a cluster of names built from Sabasios, a Greek name meaning roughly 'dedicated to Bacchus.'
History
The excerpts show Saba as a medieval name in Norman and English records, and also as a French surname linked to saintly naming. In English contexts it appears related to names such as Sebright and Sabey rather than standing alone as a very common hereditary surname. The form is also found in Jewish and other non-English naming traditions, so modern bearers may have more than one historical pathway behind the same spelling.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
One of the cited French sources notes that Saba can also mean the swallow-like bird called the 'engoulevent' in regional usage.
From the historical record
“2 Bede tells us (' Hist. Eccl.' ii. 5.) that the sons of Sreberht, king of Essex (d. A.D. 616), familiarly called him Saba : v, Sebright. SABEY = Sab(b (q.v.) -|- the E. dim. suff. -ey. SABI N 1 (Fr.-Lat.) Sabine [Fr. Sdbin, -e, Lat.”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)