Sanem
- Gender
- Girl
- Say it
- sah-NEM
- Origin
- Arabic
- US rank, 2025
- #9,454 for girls
New arrival
Sanem is a girls' name of Arabic origin, meaning “idol, beloved”. In 2025 it ranked 9,454th for girls in the US (10 babies).
What does Sanem mean?
Arabic: Turkish, from Arabic sanam 'idol', used poetically for a beloved
“idol, beloved”
A Turkish name from Ottoman poetry, where sanem, an idol, stood for a beautiful beloved.
Is Sanem a girl's or a boy's name?
Sanem is a girls' name. In 2025, it was given to 10 girls in the US. Too few boys were given it to be listed.
How popular is Sanem in the US?
- Rank in 2025
- #9,454among girls
- Babies in 2025
- 10about 1 in 160,000 girls
- Five-year trend
- Too rare to calltoo few babies to tell
- Same name in a class
- under 1%chance among 15 girls
In 2025, 10 girls in the US were named Sanem, making it the 9,454th most popular name for girls. Its busiest year was 2021, with 23 girls. It first appears in the records in 2021.
Half of all the girls named Sanem in the US since 1880 were born between 2021 and 2024, the years shaded on the chart below.
Sanem in the US, year by year
| Year | Girls | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 10 | #9,454 |
| 2024 | 12 | #8,438 |
| 2023 | 14 | #7,635 |
| 2022 | 14 | #7,626 |
| 2021 | 23 | #5,394 |
Names like Sanem
Names given in the same years and the same naming tradition, with a similar sound.
Safa Salem Rahaf Sama Nusaybah Rahma Sumayya Raha Safiya Rehmat Hafsa Abeeha
Names related to Sanem
More Arabic names
Muhammad Layla Mohammed Lyla Mohammad Zara Aaliyah Amir Amira Fatima Ali Yahya Zayn Aisha Omar Zahra
Sources
Figures from Popular Baby Names (US Social Security Administration). Nameling last updated them on 20 October 2026. How the figures are worked out, and the data to download.
To cite this page: Nameling, “Sanem: name meaning, origin and popularity”, https://www.nameling.co.uk/names/sanem, updated 20 October 2026.