Debby
Feminine · “bee”
Debby is Deborah shortened, and Deborah is a bee in Hebrew — the name of a prophet and judge who led an army, in one of the oldest passages in the Bible.
How old is the name Debby?
Debby first appears in US birth records in 1923 — 102 years ago. The typical Debby alive today was born around 1958, making them about 67 years old. About 8,200 people named Debby are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Debby most popular?
Debby peaked in 1959, reaching #309 nationally. See the whole 1959 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From devorah to Debby
The story of Debby
Deborah was a judge of Israel and the only woman among them, who summoned Barak and went to war with him. Puritan families took the name up in the seventeenth century, and it became enormously popular in mid-century America, reaching the top five. Its clippings were registered outright, and Debby peaked around 1955, alongside Debbie which was far commoner.
Meaning
bee
From the Hebrew devorah, 'bee'. The word is ordinary Hebrew and the meaning undisputed. The Song of Deborah in Judges 5 is generally held to be among the oldest surviving Hebrew poetry, which makes the name attested very early indeed.
How the name formed
- devorah
- Deborah
- Debby
Related forms: Debbie · Devorah · Débora
Pronouncing Debby
DEB-ee
Two syllables, stress on the first. Debby and Debbie are said identically.
Nicknames for Debby
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
- 1923
- Most girls named
- 1958795 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #309reached in 1959
- Change vs 2014
- +14.3%8 in 2016, 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.
Debby in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Debbie in English — spelling variant
- Devorah in Hebrew — related form
- Débora in French — related form
Debbys among us
people named Debby 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
Debby 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
- Deborah stands behind it with one of the most striking biographies in the Hebrew Bible.
- The bee meaning is concrete and transparent to Hebrew speakers.
- Warm and immediately friendly.
- Debbie is much the commoner spelling of the sound.
- As a diminutive on the certificate it carries an informal register into adult life.
- It is sharply dated to the 1950s and 1960s.
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Debby
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Debbys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 8,200 people named Debby are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Debby in 2025?
- Debby is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Debby with classmates?
- Debby will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More D names
The most-given names starting with D, all years combined.
Dorothy#421 · Donna#1962 · Deborah#862 · Debra#4460 · Diane#2607 · Doris#2895 · Denise#1673 · Danielle#549
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Debby? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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