Deborah
Feminine · “bee”
Deborah is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 742,820 girls against 1,658 boys since 1880. See Deborah as a boy name
Deborah is the Hebrew word for a bee, and the woman who carries it in the Bible is a judge, a war leader and a poet, which is an unusual combination in any book. There is a second Deborah in the text as well, easy to miss, whose whole recorded life is a single verse. She was a nurse in the household of Rebecca, and when she died they buried her under an oak and gave the tree a name.
How old is the name Deborah?
Deborah was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Deborah alive today was born around 1957, making them about 68 years old. About 624,000 people named Deborah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Deborah most popular?
Deborah peaked in 1955, reaching #2 nationally. Today it ranks #862, 860 places below that high. See the whole 1955 chart.
Where it comes from
From The Hebrew word for a bee, used as a name to Deborah
The story of Deborah
The famous Deborah holds court under a palm tree between two towns, and the text says people came up to her for judgment, which is about as much administrative detail as it gives anyone. She summons a general, tells him what to do, and goes with him when he refuses to move without her. The victory song that follows is a fierce, jubilant, deeply strange piece of poetry that scholars treat as among the oldest writing in the Hebrew Bible. The other Deborah is the counterweight. She appears once, at the end of a verse, as Rebecca's nurse, who has died and been buried beneath an oak below Bethel, and the narrator records that the tree was afterwards called the oak of weeping. There is no story attached, no explanation of why a servant's grave was marked and remembered. Somebody thought it mattered enough to write down, and the name of a tree is all that survives of her.
Meaning
bee
The Hebrew noun means a bee, and the connection is not in dispute. What the name was meant to convey is another matter and is not recorded: industriousness, sweetness, the sting, the organization of a hive, or simply the ordinary practice of naming children after creatures. Hebrew names drawn from animals are common and rarely come with an explanation attached, so the meaning of the word is certain and the intention behind it is not.
How the name formed
- The Hebrew word for a bee, used as a name
- Carried by Puritan and Nonconformist households
- Widely used across mid-century America
- Debbie, Deb and Debra alongside it
Related forms: Devorah · Debora · Debora · Debora
Pronouncing Deborah
DEB-uh-ruh
Three syllables with the stress on the first. Hebrew puts it on the last, giving deh-vo-RAH, and the v where English has a b is the same consonant treated differently by the two languages. Debra is the two-syllable respelling of the English version.
Nicknames for Deborah
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
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 195454,674 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2reached in 1955
- Change vs 2022
- +4.0%313 in 2025, from 301
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.
Deborah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Devorah in Hebrew — same name
- Debora in Italian — spelling variant
- Debora in French — spelling variant
- Debora in Spanish — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, Florida, California.
Deborahs among us
people named Deborah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 5,135 born in 2025 was named Deborah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Deborah
- #862
- Deborah on the 2025 chart
- #598
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Deborah went to 313 girls in 2025, but Debora is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 391, which makes it the 598th most-given girls’ name of the year — 264 places above the chart.
- Deborah313
- Debora78
About 1 girl in 4,111 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 5,135 for Deborah itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Barbara test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Deborah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Barbara climbed just as high around 1937, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Barbara's path sketches the road Deborah is walking now.
Deborah 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 Deborah is headed
Deborah 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.
Deborah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Deborah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is completely familiar, universally spellable and has never needed explaining to anyone.
- It carries one of the strongest women's stories in the Hebrew Bible, and the story is short enough to tell a child.
- Deb and Debbie give the name two very different registers to move between.
- It is strongly tied to one generation of American women, and that association is immediate for anybody over fifty.
- Debra and Deborah are constantly confused, and your child will be spelling out the middle of the name.
- The spelling is on the register for boys as well, in very small numbers, and reads female to essentially everyone.
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What they receive
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Deborah
Feminine · #862 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Deborahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 624,000 people named Deborah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Deborah?
- Deborah is the most-used spelling in US records — 313 of the 391 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Debora.
- How popular is the name Deborah in 2025?
- Deborah ranks #862 among US girl names in 2025, with 313 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Deborah?
- About 1 in every 5,135 US girls born in 2025 was named Deborah — 313 in all.
- Will my child share the name Deborah with classmates?
- Deborah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Deborah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Mercy#862 · Jemma#862 · Eleanora#862 · Soraya#862 · Ayleen#862 · Arisbeth#862 · Haley#861 · Lilia#859
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Deborah? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Deborah and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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