Devorah
Feminine · Hebrew roots · “bee”
Devorah is the Hebrew name as Hebrew speakers say it — the same name the Book of Judges gives to the prophetess who judged Israel from beneath a palm tree, and whose victory song is among the oldest poetry in the Hebrew Bible. Where English smoothed the middle consonant to a b, this spelling keeps the v of the original. It has been recorded in the United States for generations, most densely in New York and New Jersey, without ever crowding a classroom.
How old is the name Devorah?
Devorah first appears in US birth records in 1941 — 84 years ago. The typical Devorah alive today was born around 2005, making them about 20 years old. About 4,700 people named Devorah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Devorah most popular?
Devorah peaked in 2025, reaching #1352 nationally. Today it ranks #1352, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Devorah (Hebrew) to Devorah
The story of Devorah
The name begins in Hebrew scripture, where it belongs to two women: Rebecca's nurse in Genesis, and the judge and prophetess of the Book of Judges, whose song of victory over Sisera is counted among the earliest surviving Hebrew poetry. Greek translators of the Hebrew Bible wrote it Debbora, Latin followed with Debora, and English inherited Deborah — the b arriving through those translations rather than from the Hebrew itself. Devorah is the form that restores the original consonant, and it traveled to America largely with Ashkenazi Jewish families, alongside the Yiddish Dvoyre. That history shows in the record: it is concentrated in the New York and New Jersey area and in California.
Meaning
bee
From Hebrew devorah, the ordinary word for a bee — the same word still used in modern Hebrew.
How the name formed
- DevorahHebrew
- DebboraGreek
- DeboraLatin
- DeborahEnglish
- Devorah
Related forms: Dvora · Deborah · Dvoyre · Débora · Debora · Déborah
Pronouncing Devorah
duh-VOR-uh
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. In Hebrew the first vowel nearly disappears — closer to d'VOR-ah — and the Yiddish Dvoyre compresses it further still.
Nicknames for Devorah
High
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
- 1941
- Most girls named
- 2025163 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1352reached in 2025
- Change vs 2023
- +17.3%163 in 2025, from 139
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.
Devorah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Dvora in Hebrew — transliteration
- Deborah in English — same name
- Dvoyre in Yiddish — related form
- Débora in Spanish — same name
- Debora in Italian — same name
- Déborah in French — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York, New Jersey, California.
Devorahs among us
people named Devorah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 9,861 born in 2025 was named Devorah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Devorah
- #1352
- Devorah on the 2025 chart
- #709
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Devorah went to 163 girls in 2025, but Devora is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 254, which makes it the 709th most-given girls’ name of the year — 643 places above the chart.
- Devorah163
- Devora91
About 1 girl in 6,328 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 9,861 for Devorah 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 Sammantha test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Devorah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Sammantha climbed just as high around 1991, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Sammantha's path sketches the road Devorah is walking now.
Devorah 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 Devorah is headed
Devorah 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.
Devorah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Devorah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Carries a documented meaning parents can state in one word — bee — from a language where the word is still in daily use.
- Anchored in a text read continuously for well over two thousand years, so it has never needed reviving.
- Recognizable everywhere through its English cousin Deborah, while the spelling stays distinct.
- Has established short forms in real use — Dvori, Devy, Devora — rather than none at all.
- Exists in parallel forms across Hebrew, Yiddish, English, Spanish, Italian and French.
- The v will be corrected to a b for life. Expect Deborah on forms, name tags and mailing labels, and a habit of spelling it out.
- It reads as culturally specific — clearly Hebrew, and in the US most closely tied to Jewish families. That is a feature for many parents and worth naming plainly for the rest.
- Because Deborah was widely given in mid-century America, some people will hear the name as belonging to an older generation, and a few will reach for Debbie uninvited.
- She is unlikely to meet another Devorah at school. Some children enjoy that; others would rather not explain their name each September.
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Devorah
Feminine · Hebrew roots · #1352 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Devorahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 4,700 people named Devorah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Devorah?
- Devorah is the most-used spelling in US records — 163 of the 254 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Devora.
- How popular is the name Devorah in 2025?
- Devorah ranks #1352 among US girl names in 2025, with 163 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Devorah?
- About 1 in every 9,861 US girls born in 2025 was named Devorah — 163 in all.
- Will my child share the name Devorah with classmates?
- Devorah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Devorah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Aubrie#1352 · Lillianna#1352 · Annabella#1352 · Lexie#1352 · Leora#1352 · Hailee#1352 · Gianni#1348 · Farah#1348
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Devorah? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Devorah and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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