Entry № 9092 · Japanese origin

Sakura Sakura — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ SAH-koo-rah /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Japanese
Meaning
"Cherry blossom"
Syllables
3
First recorded
Ancient (Japanese)

A name that means "cherry blossom".

Sakura (桜) is the Japanese word for cherry blossom — the small pink flower that appears for a few weeks each spring and then falls, central to Japanese aesthetic philosophy as a symbol of the beauty and impermanence of life. The annual hanami (flower viewing) festival is a cultural anchor of Japanese spring.

Sakura has been used as a girl's name in Japan for over a century and has been one of the most popular names in the country for the past two decades. In the West, the name's recognition has been amplified by manga and anime (Sakura Haruno from Naruto; Sakura Kinomoto from Cardcaptor Sakura). A name that means "the most beautiful thing that does not last."

Cherry blossom — a Japanese name.

The name in its native script.

Transliteration
Sakura
Pronunciation
/ sa.kɯ.ɾa /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Sakura stands.

Sakura 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.

Sakuras before her.

Real people
Sakura Kinoshita
Japanese manga artist.
born 1976
In fiction
Sakura Haruno
One of the three main characters in the manga and anime Naruto.
1999–
Sakura Kinomoto
Title character of Cardcaptor Sakura.
1996–

Names connected to Sakura.

The number behind Sakura.

8

The Visionary

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Sakura reduce to 8, The Visionary. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.