Hilbert
Masculine · “bright in battle”
In nineteen hundred a mathematician with this name stood up in Paris and read out a list of unsolved problems. He picked twenty-three, said these were what the coming century should work on, and was so nearly right that the list organized a great deal of mathematics for the next hundred years. Several of them are still open.
How old is the name Hilbert?
Hilbert first appears in US birth records in 1900 — 125 years ago. The typical Hilbert alive today was born around 1927, making them about 98 years old. About 400 people named Hilbert are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Hilbert most popular?
Hilbert peaked in 1914, reaching #653 nationally. See the whole 1914 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Hildebert to Hilbert
The story of Hilbert
Hilbert and Gilbert look like the same name and share only their ending. The back half is identical — the element meaning bright, which closes a long list of Germanic names — but the fronts are unrelated: one is the word for battle, the other is the word for a pledge or a hostage, which was given as a name because a hostage exchanged to guarantee a treaty was a person of standing rather than a prisoner. So one name is about fighting and the other is about the alternative to fighting, and a single letter separates them.
Meaning
bright in battle
Two Germanic elements, one meaning battle and one meaning bright or famous. Compounds of this kind rarely make a coherent phrase; the parts carried the meaning and the whole was a name.
How the name formed
- Hildebert
- Hilbert
Related forms: Hilbert · Hilbert
Pronouncing Hilbert
HIL-bert
Two syllables with the stress at the front. German says the same with a slightly crisper final consonant, and nothing about the spelling is ambiguous.
Nicknames for Hilbert
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
- 1900
- Most boys named
- 192283 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #653reached in 1914
- Change vs 1995
- 0.0%6 in 1998, from 6
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.
Hilbert in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Hilbert in German — same name
- Hilbert in Dutch — same name
Hilberts among us
people named Hilbert 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
Hilbert 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
- It is attached to a genuinely consequential figure rather than a vague tradition.
- The spelling and the sound agree completely.
- Bert works as a plainer short form without being invented.
- Gilbert is far commoner and the two get confused constantly.
- The generation that used it in America is now very old.
- Both elements of the meaning are invisible without explanation.
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Hilbert
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Hilberts are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 400 people named Hilbert are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Hilbert in 2025?
- Hilbert is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Hilbert with classmates?
- Hilbert 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 Hilbert? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Hilbert and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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