Debrah
Feminine · “bee”
The Song of Deborah is among the oldest surviving Hebrew poetry — linguists date it several centuries earlier than the prose around it, which makes it one of the oldest things in the Bible. It is a victory song, sung by a woman who was both a judge and a prophet, and it is not gentle.
How old is the name Debrah?
Debrah first appears in US birth records in 1934 — 91 years ago. The typical Debrah alive today was born around 1958, making them about 67 years old. About 3,700 people named Debrah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Debrah most popular?
Debrah peaked in 1954, reaching #500 nationally. See the whole 1954 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From devorah to Debrah
The story of Debrah
Deborah appears in the Book of Judges as the only woman among Israel's judges — she holds court under a palm tree, summons a general, and goes to war with him when he refuses to go alone. The song in chapter five celebrates the victory in language so archaic that it is one of the primary sources for reconstructing early Hebrew. English Puritans took the name in the sixteenth century along with the rest of the Hebrew Bible, and it has been in continuous use since.
Meaning
bee
Hebrew devorah is a bee, and the derivation is not disputed. The same word underlies dibber, to speak, which some read as a connection to prophecy — an attractive link that is not demonstrable. Greek gives the same insect to Melissa, so the two names mean identically the same thing by two unrelated routes. Debrah drops the unstressed middle vowel and keeps the final h, which is a spelling that follows the mouth.
How the name formed
- devorah
- Deborah
- Debrah
Related forms: דְּבוֹרָה · Debora · Débora
Pronouncing Debrah
DEB-ruh
DEB-ruh, two syllables, stress at the front. Deborah is written with three syllables and said with two by most English speakers, which is exactly what this spelling records. Hebrew says dev-oh-RAH, with the weight at the end.
Nicknames for Debrah
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
- 1934
- Most girls named
- 1954312 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #500reached in 1954
- Change vs 2010
- −28.6%5 in 2021, 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.
Debrah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- דְּבוֹרָה in Hebrew — transliteration
- Debora in Italian — same name
- Débora in French — same name
Debrahs among us
people named Debrah 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
Debrah 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
- The biblical figure is documented, unusual and genuinely impressive.
- The spelling matches how the name is actually said, which the standard one does not.
- Deb and Debbie are both ready short forms in different registers.
- Deborah is the standard spelling and this will be rewritten as it.
- It is very strongly associated with the middle of the last century in America.
- Debra is the more common of the two shortened spellings, so even the shortening has a rival.
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What they receive
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Debrah
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Debrahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,700 people named Debrah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Debrah in 2025?
- Debrah is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Debrah with classmates?
- Debrah 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 Debrah? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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