Herb
Masculine · “bright army”
Americans drop the h in the word and keep it in the name. An American says an erb and a Herb, without noticing that the two are spelled identically — one of the neatest illustrations there is that a name is not simply a word that happens to be capitalized.
How old is the name Herb?
Herb first appears in US birth records in 1884 — 141 years ago. The typical Herb alive today was born around 1947, making them about 78 years old. About 1,000 people named Herb are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Herb most popular?
Herb peaked in 1884, reaching #764 nationally. See the whole 1884 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Herebeorht to Herb
The story of Herb
The fuller name went out of English and came back through another country. It existed in Old English, disappeared after the Conquest as the Anglo-Saxon name stock was displaced, and returned with the Normans, who had inherited the same Germanic name through Frankish and brought it over as their own. So the name a modern Englishman carries was in England, left, and came back with the people who had taken it away — the same word, arriving twice, five hundred years apart, and treated the second time as a foreign import.
Meaning
bright army
Two Germanic elements, one meaning an army or a host and one meaning bright or famous. The short form carries the sense at one remove and shares nothing with the English word for a plant.
How the name formed
- Herebeorht
- Herbert
- Herb
Pronouncing Herb
HURB
One syllable with the h fully sounded, which is what separates the name from the plant word in American speech.
Nicknames for Herb
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
- 1884
- Most boys named
- 194770 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #764reached in 1884
- Change vs 1991
- +20.0%6 in 1993, from 5
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.
Herbs among us
people named Herb 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
Herb 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
- One syllable, four letters, and never needs spelling out twice.
- It reads as plain and friendly rather than formal.
- It has been in American use for the whole length of the record.
- It is spelled identically to a common noun, which is noticed constantly.
- It reads as a short form to many people even when it is the legal name.
- The generation that used it is now very old.
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Herb
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Herbs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,000 people named Herb are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Herb in 2025?
- Herb is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Herb with classmates?
- Herb will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More H names
The most-given names starting with H, all years combined.
Henry#5 · Harold#991 · Harry#775 · Howard#1002 · Hunter#130 · Herbert#2641 · Herman#2363 · Harvey#251
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Herb? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Herb and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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