Betzaida
Feminine · “house of fishing”
Spanish gives girls the names of places in the Gospels, and does it on a scale English never has. Belen is Bethlehem and is an ordinary Spanish woman's name. So are Nazaret, Sion and Betzaida, which is Bethsaida — the fishing village three of the apostles came from.
How old is the name Betzaida?
Betzaida first appears in US birth records in 1957 — 68 years ago. The typical Betzaida alive today was born around 2004, making them about 21 years old. About 1,400 people named Betzaida are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Betzaida most popular?
Betzaida peaked in 2004, reaching #1329 nationally. Today it ranks #11932, 10,603 places below that high. See the whole 2004 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Bethsaida to Betzaida
The story of Betzaida
Spanish Catholic naming took whatever the church gave it, and it gave a great deal: titles of the Virgin, abstract virtues, saints, feast days, and place names from the Gospels. Belen, which is Bethlehem, is the clearest case — an entirely ordinary Spanish woman's name that most English speakers do not recognize as a town. Betzaida works the same way. The town itself is named in the Gospels as the home of Peter, Andrew and Philip, and as one of the places rebuked for not listening; archaeologists have argued for a century about which mound on the north shore of the lake it actually was. The name reached American records through Puerto Rico and Mexico.
Meaningscholars disagree
house of fishing
Bethsaida is Aramaic: beth, house, with a second element read either as fishing or as hunting. The town sat at the north end of the Sea of Galilee, and the fishing reading suits both the place and the trade of the men the Gospels say came from it. The z in the Spanish spelling represents the same sound as the English s.
How the name formed
- Bethsaida
- Betsaida
- Betzaida
Related forms: Betsaida
Pronouncing Betzaida
bet-SIGH-dah
Three syllables, stress in the middle. The z is an s in Latin American Spanish. English readers who try to sound the z produce a fourth syllable that is not there.
Nicknames for Betzaida
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
- 1957
- Most girls named
- 2004160 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1329reached in 2004
- Change vs 2024
- 0.0%7 in 2025, from 7
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.
Betzaida in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Betsaida in Spanish — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas.
Betzaidas among us
people named Betzaida are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 229,610 born in 2025 was named Betzaida
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Laquinta test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Betzaida's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Laquinta climbed just as high around 1973, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Laquinta's path sketches the road Betzaida is walking now.
Betzaida sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Betzaida beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Betzaida in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A documented place with a documented name, both of which can be looked up.
- Three short forms, two of which are names in their own right.
- It belongs to a real and identifiable naming tradition.
- Betsaida and Bethsaida are both used, so the spelling will be given every time.
- English speakers reliably mispronounce the z, and the name is long enough that the correction is a chore.
- The name is a village nobody has definitively located, which is either interesting or unsatisfying.
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What they receive
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Betzaida
Feminine · #11932 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Betzaidas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,400 people named Betzaida are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Betzaida in 2025?
- Betzaida ranks #11932 among US girl names in 2025, with 7 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Betzaida?
- About 1 in every 229,610 US girls born in 2025 was named Betzaida — 7 in all.
- Will my child share the name Betzaida with classmates?
- Betzaida will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Betzaida
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Alliah#11932 · Alyia#11932 · Ariannah#11932 · Allanah#11932 · Briyana#11932 · Bellah#11932 · Aamiyah#11932 · Ayannah#11932
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Betzaida? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Betzaida and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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