Sara — Name Meaning in Islam

Origin: Hebrew Sarah, "princess" or "noblewoman", carried into Arabic as Sāra. Some Arabic lexicographers also connect the sound to س-ر-ر, the root of joy and of what is kept secret, and gloss the name as "she who brings gladness" — a folk derivation rather than the historical one, but old and widely repeated.

From that Arabic root: surūr (joy), sirr (a secret), masarra (delight), sarrāʾ (ease, the opposite of ḍarrāʾ, hardship).

Who carried it: Sara, wife of the Prophet Ibrahim and mother of Ishaq. The Qur'an does not name her — she is "his wife" in the passage where the messengers come to Ibrahim — but the account is vivid: she is standing there, she laughs, and she is given the news of Ishaq and beyond him Yaqub, at an age that makes her exclaim at it (Hud 11:71-73). The passage is one of the few in which a woman's reaction is recorded in her own words.

Spellings: Sara, Sarah, Sare (Turkish), Sarah (Indonesian, Urdu), سارة.

Pronunciation: SAA-ra, with a long first vowel — not the short English "Sarra".

Note: the name is shared across Muslim, Christian and Jewish families for the obvious reason, and it is one of the few given almost identically in all three.