Gender: Feminine
Usage: English, Italian, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese
Pronounced: sə-BREEN-ə(English) sa-BREE-na(Italian, Spanish) za-BREE-na(German) SA-BREE-NA(French) su-BREE-nu(European Portuguese) sa-BREE-nu(Brazilian Portuguese)
Rating: 56% based on 11 votes
Latinized form of
Habren, the original Welsh name of the River Severn. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Sabrina was the name of a princess who was drowned in the Severn. Supposedly the river was named for her, but it is more likely that her name was actually derived from that of the river, which is of unknown meaning. She appears as a water nymph in John Milton's masque
Comus (1634).
The name was brought to public attention by Samuel A. Taylor's play Sabrina Fair (1953) and the movie adaptation Sabrina that followed it the next year. This is also the name of a comic book character, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, first introduced 1962 and with television adaptations in 1970-1974 and 1996-2003, both causing minor jumps in popularity. Another jump occurred in 1976, when it was used for a main character on the television series Charlie's Angels.