Brigitta
Feminine · “the exalted one”
A fire burned at Kildare for centuries, tended in turn by nineteen women, and never allowed to go out. It was there before Christianity and it was still there in the twelfth century, when a visiting churchman wrote it down as a curiosity. Brigid is the name attached to it, and to the woman who is supposed to have kept it.
How old is the name Brigitta?
Brigitta first appears in US birth records in 1944 — 81 years ago. The typical Brigitta alive today was born around 1982, making them about 43 years old. About 500 people named Brigitta are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Brigitta most popular?
Brigitta peaked in 1962, reaching #3033 nationally. Today it ranks #11932, 8,899 places below that high. See the whole 1962 chart.
Where it comes from
From Brighid to Brigitta
The story of Brigitta
Brigid holds three jobs that do not usually go together: poetry, smithcraft and healing. That combination is one of the reasons scholars read the pre-Christian figure as a triple one — three sisters, or one goddess with three faces — and it survived into the saint, who is credited with an improbable range of practical miracles. The fire at Kildare is the clearest thread between the two. It was extinguished by an archbishop in the thirteenth century as a pagan survival, relit afterwards, and finally put out at the Reformation. The name went to Europe with Irish monks, was carried by a fourteenth-century Swedish mystic, and came back into English as Brigitta, Birgitta and Bridget.
Meaning
the exalted one
From Irish Brighid, built on a word meaning high or exalted, which also gave the Gaulish goddess name Brigantia. Brigitta is the Latin and central European form, used in Sweden, Germany, Hungary and Italy. The meaning is unusually secure for a name this old.
How the name formed
- Brighid
- Brigitta
Related forms: Birgitta · Brigitte · Brigitta · Brigida
Pronouncing Brigitta
brih-GIT-ah
Three syllables, stress in the middle, with a hard g. Hungarian stresses the first syllable as it does every word, giving BRI-git-taw. The doubled t is held slightly longer in Italian and German than in English.
Nicknames for Brigitta
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
- 1944
- Most girls named
- 196217 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3033reached in 1962
- Change vs 2023
- +16.7%7 in 2025, 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.
Brigitta in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Birgitta in Swedish — same name
- Brigitte in German — same name
- Brigitta in Hungarian — same name
- Brigida in Italian — same name
Brigittas among us
people named Brigitta are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 229,610 born in 2025 was named Brigitta
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 Suzetta test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Brigitta's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Suzetta climbed just as high around 1946, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Suzetta's path sketches the road Brigitta is walking now.
Brigitta 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
Brigitta beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Brigitta in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled Irish meaning and one of the longest continuous records of any European name.
- The same spelling in Hungarian and Swedish, and one letter from the German and Italian.
- Three short forms, two of which are full names elsewhere.
- Brigitte, Bridget and Birgitta are all commoner in America, so the spelling will be given often.
- The old English pet form became an insulting word for a woman, which is worth knowing before someone uses it.
- Three syllables with a hard g is a substantial name in front of a substantial surname.
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What they receive
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Brigitta
Feminine · #11932 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Brigittas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 500 people named Brigitta are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Brigitta in 2025?
- Brigitta ranks #11932 among US girl names in 2025, with 7 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Brigitta?
- About 1 in every 229,610 US girls born in 2025 was named Brigitta — 7 in all.
- Will my child share the name Brigitta with classmates?
- Brigitta will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Brigitta
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Vina#11932 · Retta#11932 · Missouri#11932 · Iola#11932 · Eddie#11932 · Thomas#11932 · Louetta#11932 · Elvina#11932
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Brigitta? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Brigitta 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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