Berlinda
Feminine
Berlinda is one letter away from a name with a literary pedigree and one syllable away from two others. It sounds settled and old, and the settled old name it sounds like is not quite the one it is. That single r is doing a great deal of work.
How old is the name Berlinda?
Berlinda first appears in US birth records in 1934 — 91 years ago. The typical Berlinda alive today was born around 1963, making them about 62 years old. About 800 people named Berlinda are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Berlinda most popular?
Berlinda peaked in 1961, reaching #1666 nationally. See the whole 1961 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From A Germanic ending, -linda, appears in names across medieval Europe to Berlinda
The story of Berlinda
The name it most resembles owes its currency to a poem about a haircut. In 1712 Alexander Pope published The Rape of the Lock, a mock-epic written to patch up a quarrel between two real families after a young man cut a lock of hair from a young woman's head at a party without asking. Pope treated the incident with the full machinery of Homer — gods, portents, a battle — and called his heroine Belinda. The poem was a sensation, it was reprinted for two centuries, and it made a name that had barely existed in English into one that educated parents recognized. Belinda then traveled through a novel by Maria Edgeworth and into ordinary use. Berlinda arrives much later, in American records, close enough to that name to borrow its sound and far enough away to have none of its history.
Meaningnot established
Not established
No reference gives Berlinda a derivation of its own, and the candidates do not agree. It may be Belinda with an r inserted, in which case it inherits an argument about whether that name is Germanic or invented. It may be a blend of Bertha and Linda, both of which were in ordinary use when this spelling appears. It may be Bernice and Linda, or Bertha and Belinda. The -linda ending itself is Germanic and genuinely old, but an ending is not a derivation, and putting a meaning on the whole name would mean choosing one of the possibilities and hiding the rest.
How the name formed
- A Germanic ending, -linda, appears in names across medieval Europe
- 1712: Pope's mock-epic gives English poetry a Belinda
- The name passes into ordinary English use through fiction
- American records carry Berlinda, one letter and a world away
Related forms: Belinda · Belinda · Gerlinde
Pronouncing Berlinda
bur-LIN-duh
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. The r is fully pronounced, which is what separates this name from Belinda in speech as well as on paper — the two are not homophones, though they are close enough that many listeners will not register the difference.
Nicknames for Berlinda
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1934
- Most girls named
- 196146 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1666reached in 1961
- Change vs 2002
- 0.0%6 in 2006, from 6
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Berlinda in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Belinda in English — related form
- Belinda in Spanish — related form
- Gerlinde in German — related form
Berlindas among us
people named Berlinda are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Berlinda sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- A warm, rounded sound with the stress where English speakers expect it
- Contains a plain, familiar name that can be used on its own from the start
- Distinctive without being difficult: no one will struggle to say it
- It will be heard and written as Belinda by a large share of the people who meet it.
- No reference work will give the child a meaning, only a list of names it might have been built from.
- The name sits in a mid-century American register that some ears will date immediately.
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Berlinda
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Berlindas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 800 people named Berlinda are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Berlinda in 2025?
- Berlinda is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Berlinda with classmates?
- Berlinda will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More B names
The most-given names starting with B, all years combined.
Barbara#968 · Betty#1113 · Brenda#1525 · Beverly#1016 · Brittany#928 · Bonnie#396 · Brianna#222 · Bertha#4546
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Berlinda? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Berlinda and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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