Bertina
Feminine · “Bright”
Bertina takes an element that was already a complete woman's name and adds a Latin ending to it anyway. Bertha is the element standing alone; Bertina is Bertha with more on the end; and the ending is doing register rather than grammar, since the name was not short of femininity to begin with.
How old is the name Bertina?
Bertina first appears in US birth records in 1882 — 143 years ago. The typical Bertina alive today was born around 1957, making them about 68 years old. About 800 people named Bertina are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Bertina most popular?
Bertina peaked in 1882, reaching #908 nationally. See the whole 1882 chart.
Where it comes from
From beraht to Bertina
The story of Bertina
One Bertha changed which church England belonged to. She was a Frankish princess, already Christian, married to a pagan king of Kent on condition that she could keep her faith and bring her own bishop; she did, worshipped in a Roman-era church outside Canterbury that is still standing, and the fact that there was a Christian queen with a chaplain in the English court is the reason a pope sent a mission to Kent rather than anywhere else. Her husband converted, the mission stayed, and the archbishopric that resulted has been there ever since. She is barely mentioned in the account written a century later, which credits the mission and the king, and modern historians have had to argue her back into the story.
Meaning
Bright, famous
The Germanic beraht means bright or shining, and by extension famous, and it stands at the end of Albert, Herbert and Gilbert as well as alone in Bertha. The Latin -ina on the end is a diminutive and a feminiser, applied here to something that needed neither. That kind of stacking is common and rarely means anything more than fashion.
How the name formed
- beraht
- Bertha
- Bertina
Related forms: Bertha · Bertina · Bertine · Berthe
Pronouncing Bertina
bur-TEE-nuh
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. The first vowel has been through the same merger as bird and herd, so it is the neutral r-colored one rather than anything the spelling suggests.
Nicknames for Bertina
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
- 1882
- Most girls named
- 197431 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #908reached in 1882
- Change vs 1991
- −37.5%5 in 2005, from 8
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.
Bertina in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Bertha in German — related form
- Bertina in Italian — same name
- Bertine in Dutch — same name
- Berthe in French — related form
Bertinas among us
people named Bertina 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
Bertina 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
- Tina and Bertie are two short forms belonging to different centuries.
- The name is recognizable in Italian, Dutch and German with almost no change.
- It is genuinely old material in a shape that is easy to say.
- The bert element reads as thoroughly old-fashioned in English, whatever is attached to it.
- Bertina, Bertine and Bertena all exist for nearly the same sound.
- The name is strongly dated to the late nineteenth century in American records.
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What they receive
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Bertina
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Bertinas 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 Bertina are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Bertina in 2025?
- Bertina is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Bertina with classmates?
- Bertina 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 Bertina? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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