Sage ranks #438 with 283 entries, registered female-leaning. The name pulls from two distinct English meanings — the herb (Salvia officinalis, a kitchen and medicinal plant) and the descriptor for someone wise. Pet owners reach the name through both doors, and the register reads earthy, slightly mystical, and quietly intelligent.
The herb-name aesthetic
Sage sits in the herb-name cluster alongside Basil, Rosemary, and Thyme — names that have moved from kitchen-garden register into design-aware pet-naming territory over the past decade. Owners reaching for these names tend to share a register: cottagecore-adjacent, slightly bohemian, comfortable with a name that feels organic.
Sound fit and breed lean
One syllable (SAYJ), front-loaded, with a soft fricative ending that gives the name an unhurried finish. The name lands well on calm, intelligent breeds — Border Collies, Poodles, Australian Shepherds, and gentle mixed breeds. There is also a meaningful cat cluster, particularly green-eyed grey shorthairs where the visual herbal-tone matches.
The unisex utility
Sage is one of the more comfortably unisex picks on the chart, and despite the female lean in the data, it reads completely natural on male pets too. The owner cluster skews toward outdoorsy, herbalist-curious, slightly West Coast aesthetic. The human Sage page shows the SSA chart climbing meaningfully across the 2010s and 2020s, with the same gender-neutral pattern showing up on the human side and the same earthy-herbal register pulling parents in.