Sallie

Sallie is an English pet form of Sally, itself a medieval rhyming nickname for Sarah, which derives from the Hebrew name Sarai, meaning princess or noblewoman. The shift from Sarah to Sally and its variants followed a common pattern in Middle English of substituting initial consonants in familiar forms, as also seen with Mary becoming Molly or Margaret becoming Maggie. Sallie gained particular popularity as an independent given name in nineteenth-century America and appears frequently in Southern American naming traditions. Related forms include Sarah, Sara, Sally, and Sadie.