Bridget
Feminine · “exalted one”
Bridget is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 92,367 girls against 150 boys since 1880.
Bridget is the English form of Old Irish Brigit, a name that belonged both to a goddess of the pre-Christian Irish and to Brigid of Kildare, the sixth-century abbess who became one of Ireland's patron saints. It traveled out of Ireland with generations of emigrants and has been in continuous use in America ever since records began. Three syllables in Irish, two in English, and the same firm consonant in the middle either way.
How old is the name Bridget?
Bridget was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Bridget alive today was born around 1981, making them about 44 years old. About 85,000 people named Bridget are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Bridget most popular?
Bridget peaked in 1973, reaching #112 nationally. Today it ranks #724, 612 places below that high. See the whole 1973 chart.
Bridget appears on these lists:
Works in Irish families too:
Where it comes from
From Brigit to Bridget
The story of Bridget
The name begins as Brigit in Old Irish, borne by a goddess associated with poetry, smithcraft and healing, and then by Brigid of Kildare, the abbess whose feast on the first of February still marks the start of the Irish spring. For centuries the name was considered too holy for ordinary use in Ireland, and later became one of the most common women's names there — carried in enormous numbers to the United States, Britain and Australia during the emigrations of the nineteenth century. The Irish spelling Bríd stayed home; Bridget is the form that crossed the water. Along a separate road, medieval Scandinavia took the saint's name as Birgitta, which gave Sweden its own Saint Birgitta in the fourteenth century and gave Europe Birgit, Britta and the French and German Brigitte.
Meaning
exalted one, the high one
From Old Irish Brigit, built on a Celtic root meaning high or exalted — the same root behind words for height and eminence in the older Celtic languages.
How the name formed
- Brigit
- Brighid
- Bríd
- Brigid
- Bridget
Related forms: Bríd · Brigitte · Brigitte · Birgitta · Birgit · Brigida
Pronouncing Bridget
BRIJ-it
Two syllables, stress on the first. The Irish Bríd is a single syllable, closer to BREEDJ.
Nicknames for Bridget
High
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
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 19811,899 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #112reached in 1973
- Change vs 2022
- +8.1%385 in 2025, from 356
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.
Bridget in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Bríd in Irish — same name
- Brigitte in French — same name
- Brigitte in German — same name
- Birgitta in Swedish — same name
- Birgit in Danish/Norwegian — related form
- Brigida in Italian — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Bridgets among us
people named Bridget are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 4,175 born in 2025 was named Bridget
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 Gwendolyn test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Bridget's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Gwendolyn climbed just as high around 1951, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Gwendolyn's path sketches the road Bridget is walking now.
Bridget 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
Where Bridget is headed
Bridget should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Bridget beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Bridget in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- One settled English spelling that people already know and can spell from hearing it once.
- A documented line running from Old Irish through to the present day, unbroken.
- Sister forms in Irish, French, German, Italian and Scandinavian, so the name is recognizable well beyond English.
- Several long-standing short forms — Bridie, Bree, Bridge — none of which need explaining.
- In nineteenth-century America, Bridget and Biddy were used as generic labels for Irish immigrant servants. That sting has faded almost entirely, but it is part of the name's history and worth knowing about.
- Bridgette, Brigitte and Bridgit all exist, so expect the occasional letter addressed to the wrong version.
- The name is far better represented among adults than among children right now, which cuts both ways: familiar to every grown-up who hears it, and unlikely to be duplicated in a classroom.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Bridget
Feminine · #724 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Bridgets are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 85,000 people named Bridget are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Bridget in 2025?
- Bridget ranks #724 among US girl names in 2025, with 385 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Bridget?
- About 1 in every 4,175 US girls born in 2025 was named Bridget — 385 in all.
- Will my child share the name Bridget with classmates?
- Bridget will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Bridget
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Gwen#725 · Samira#723 · Theodora#725 · Sol#722 · Keilani#727 · Bristol#728 · Kathryn#729 · Macy#718
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Bridget? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Bridget and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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