Barbara
Barbara is a girl's name that peaked in 1947, when it was the 4th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 968th. About 824,000 Barbaras are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 73.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Barbara boys named Barbara
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 1,440,831
- Estimated living today
- 824,000
- Median age today
- 73
- Peak year
- 1947
- Best rank
- 4th
- Rank in 2025
- 968th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 1,436,695 / 4,136
How old the living Barbaras are
born that year still alive today
Of the 1,440,831 babies given the name since 1880, about 824,000 are alive — 57 in every hundred. Roughly 5,900 of them are children and 627,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1952 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
Origin Latin
From Latin Barbara, the name of Saint Barbara, feminine form of barbarus, from Ancient Greek βάρβαρος (“strange, foreign”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Barbaras
- Barbara McClintock (1902–1992)American scientist and cytogeneticist
- Barbara Stanwyck (1907–1990)American actress
- Barbara Bush (1925–2018)First Lady of the United States from 1989 to 1993
- Saint Barbara (273–306)early Christian saint and martyr, from Nicomedia
- Barbara Walters (1929–2022)American broadcast journalist
- Barbara Cartland (1901–2000)English writer and media personality
- Barbara Hershey (born 1948)American actress
- Barbara W. Tuchman (1912–1989)American historian and author
People named Barbara with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Barbara is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Barbara is most concentrated in the District of Columbia (1.8×), Rhode Island (1.6×), Vermont (1.6×), Massachusetts (1.5×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1947
The most popular girls’ names the year Barbara peaked:
Barbara elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Poland girls | Barbara +1 spelling | 27,518 birth registrations | 33rd |
| France girls | Barbara | 26,200 | 60th |
| Austria girls | Barbara | 7,073 | 4th |
| Italy girls | Barbara | 3,854 | — |
| New Zealand girls | Barbara | 3,531 | 10th |
| Ireland girls | Barbara | 3,087 | 49th |
| Norway girls | Barbara | 948 | 167th |
| Scotland girls | Barbara | 689 | 94th |
| England and Wales girls | Barbara | 671 | 886th |
| Belgium girls | Barbara | 436 | 188th |
| Switzerland girls | Barbara +1 spelling | 304 | 252nd |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Barbara: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Barbara | 168 | 0.014% | 217th |
| German girls | Switzerland | Bárbara | 14 | 0.001% | 954th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Barbara | 85 | 0.020% | 205th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Bárbara | 14 | 0.003% | 493rd |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Barbara | 22 | 0.034% | 87th |
| Romansh girls | Switzerland | Barbara | 1 | 0.027% | 10th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Barbara is most concentrated in Vaud, where 0.03% of children were given it – 42 of them.
Barbara: rank by region
In 2012, Barbara was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Barbara | 760 | 6 |
In 2025, Barbara was given 2 times or more in 16 regions of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dolnośląskie | Barbara | 46 | 52 |
| Kujawsko-Pomorskie | Barbara | 47 | 34 |
| Lubelskie | Barbara | 50 | 24 |
| Lubuskie | Barbara | 65 | 8 |
| Łódzkie | Barbara | 34 | 63 |
| Małopolskie | Barbara | 53 | 64 |
| Mazowieckie | Barbara | 32 | 192 |
| Opolskie | Barbara | 40 | 17 |
| Podkarpackie | Barbara | 64 | 19 |
| Podlaskie | Barbara | 43 | 22 |
| Pomorskie | Barbara | 47 | 48 |
| Śląskie | Barbara | 62 | 44 |
| Świętokrzyskie | Barbara | 40 | 18 |
| Warmińsko-Mazurskie | Barbara | 46 | 24 |
| Wielkopolskie | Barbara | 39 | 89 |
| Zachodniopomorskie | Barbara | 56 | 17 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Barbara by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 5 | 499th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Barbara among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands girls | Barbara | 12,122 | 25,760 |
| the Netherlands boys | Barbara | — | 1,456 |
| Finland girls | Barbara | 133 | 363 |
Among boys in the Netherlands this is mostly a middle name: of the 1,456 who carry it, fewer than five go by it.
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Barbara lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 21,224 women called Barbara were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Balears, Illes | Barbara | 2,056 | 3.278 | 50 |
| Asturias | Barbara | 672 | 1.266 | 146 |
| Palmas, Las | Barbara | 735 | 1.246 | 111 |
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Barbara | 665 | 1.200 | 132 |
| León | Barbara | 239 | 1.039 | 168 |
| Madrid | Barbara | 3,817 | 1.030 | 151 |
Listed in 52 of Spain's 52 provinces. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Barbara 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.