How to say it
sa · VAN · nah
/səˈvæn.ə/
Feminine
Savannah
Plain, grassland
What it means
From Spanish sabana, itself from the Taino zabana ('flat, treeless plain'). Savannah, Georgia (founded 1733) gave the name its dominant US anchor; it also entered the language as a generic ecological term.
Savannah comes from the Spanish sabana, borrowed from the Taino (Caribbean Arawakan) word zabana ('flat plain, grassland'). Spanish colonists used the word for the open grasslands they encountered in the Americas, and it entered English with the spelling Savannah. The city of Savannah, Georgia (founded by James Oglethorpe in 1733) is the strongest cultural anchor. As a given name Savannah is American and recent: rare before 1980, then climbing fast after the 1990 Disney remake of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (and the broader American-South coding). It's been in the US top 100 since 1994. Sav and Vanna are uncommon shorts.
Popularity over time
peaked at #30 in 2006, currently #135 in 2025.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration, names given to at least 5 babies in a year, 1880–present. See where the names are moving
Heads-up notes
- Spelling
Savannah (the city and the dominant name spelling) has a double N and an H; Savanna without the H is the ecological term.
Who's worn it
Historical figures, characters, and public faces who share the name. The cultural surface, for whatever weight you want to give it.
- Savannah, Georgia Coastal city in Georgia, the historic colonial capital
- Savannah Guthrie American journalist, co-anchor of NBC's Today show
Spelling variants
- Savanna
- Savanah
Names with the same feeling
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