Babe
The girl's name Babe has been in the national records since 1880, with 728 births to its name. It is given to both boys and girls. It has not appeared in the national data since 1980. About 60 Babes are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 78.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Babe boys named Babe
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 728
- Estimated living today
- 60
- Median age today
- 78
- Peak year
- 1915
- Best rank
- 1,738th
- Rank in 2025
- unranked
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 383 / 345
How old the living Babes are
born that year still alive today
Of the 728 babies given the name since 1880, about 60 are alive — 8 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1947 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Use of the common noun babe as a (nick)name.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Babes
- Babe Ruth (1895–1948)American baseball player
- Babe Didrikson Zaharias (1911–1956)American golfer and athlete
People named Babe with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Babe is most common
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1915
The most popular girls’ names the year Babe peaked:
Related names
Babe against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.