Saffron is from the Arabic zaʿfarān (زعفران) — the dried stigmas of the Crocus sativus flower, which produces the world's most expensive spice by weight (over $5,000 per pound at retail). Saffron has been cultivated since 2300 BCE in Persia and Greece; Cleopatra reportedly bathed in saffron-infused mare's milk; in medieval Europe, saffron forgery was punishable by burning. Saffron Burrows (born 1973) — *British-American actress; Deep Blue Sea (1999), Troy (2004), Mozart in the Jungle (2014-2018), You (2020), and Loot (2022). Saffron Aldridge (born 1968) — British model; face of Ralph Lauren in the 1990s. Saffron Walden — English market town named for the medieval saffron cultivation in the area; population 16,000. Saffron is also the Buddhist monastic color — the robes of Theravada monks in Southeast Asia are dyed saffron-yellow. In Hinduism, saffron (kesari, bhagwa) represents fire and the sun; the central band of the Indian national flag is saffron. A top-1000 US baby name since 2007 driven by botanical naming trends*.
Featured throughout botanical, cultural, and spiritual histories.
Saffron does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.
In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Saffron reduce to 7, The Seeker. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.