Debra
Feminine · “Bee”
Debra is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 550,695 girls against 1,146 boys since 1880. See Debra as a boy name
Debra removes the unstressed vowel from Deborah and became commoner than the full form for a while. That is unusual: a contraction normally stays a variant, and this one overtook its parent in the American record and held the position for most of a decade.
How old is the name Debra?
Debra first appears in US birth records in 1914 — 111 years ago. The typical Debra alive today was born around 1958, making them about 67 years old. About 471,000 people named Debra are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Debra most popular?
Debra peaked in 1956, reaching #2 nationally. Today it ranks #4460, 4,458 places below that high. See the whole 1956 chart.
Where it comes from
From Devorah to Debra
The story of Debra
Honey was the only sweetener anybody in that part of the world had, and beekeeping was an industry. Excavation at a site in the Jordan valley has turned up an apiary of the ninth century before Christ with rows of cylindrical clay hives stacked in tiers, capable of holding well over a million bees and producing honey and wax on a commercial scale; the bees in it, identified from remains, appear to have been imported from Anatolia because they were a better strain. That is an organized agricultural operation three thousand years old. A name meaning bee, in a culture that was farming them at that scale, is not a whimsical choice.
Meaning
Bee
Hebrew devorah, the word for a bee, used directly as a name. Ancient Hebrew naming used animals freely and the connection is not metaphorical: a bee was a bee. The contraction removes the vowel between the b and the r, which is silent in ordinary English speech anyway.
How the name formed
- Devorah
- Deborah
- Debra
Related forms: Devorah · Debora
Pronouncing Debra
DEB-ruh
Two syllables with the stress at the front. The full spelling has three when said carefully and two in ordinary speech, which is exactly why the contraction works and why it caught on.
Nicknames for Debra
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
- 1914
- Most girls named
- 195550,563 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2reached in 1956
- Change vs 2023
- +3.3%31 in 2025, from 30
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.
Debra in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Devorah in Hebrew — transliteration
- Debora in Italian — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York, Texas, New Jersey.
Debras among us
people named Debra are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 51,847 born in 2025 was named Debra
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 Barbara test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Debra'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 Debra is walking now.
Debra 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 Debra is headed
Debra should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium 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.
Debra beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Debra in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is shorter than the full name and loses nothing that is said.
- Deb and Debbie are two short forms in different registers.
- The spoken name is completely established and never needs repeating.
- The record carries it for boys in small numbers, so it is not quite an absolute signal.
- It is very strongly dated to the middle of the last century in American ears.
- Debbie takes over for most bearers and belongs to a specific generation.
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What they receive
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Debra
Feminine · #4460 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Debras are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 471,000 people named Debra are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Debra in 2025?
- Debra ranks #4460 among US girl names in 2025, with 31 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Debra?
- About 1 in every 51,847 US girls born in 2025 was named Debra — 31 in all.
- Will my child share the name Debra with classmates?
- Debra will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Debra
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Jayce#4460 · Nikita#4460 · Magali#4460 · Emari#4460 · Rilyn#4460 · Danyla#4460 · Lynleigh#4460 · Mandy#4460
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Debra? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Debra 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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