Hildegarde
Feminine · “battle-shelter”
Hildegarde is the French-looking spelling of a very old German name, and it belongs to one of the most extraordinary people of the Middle Ages: an abbess who wrote theology, medicine and music, corresponded with popes and emperors, went on preaching tours nobody had authorized, and invented a private language with an alphabet of its own to write it in.
How old is the name Hildegarde?
Hildegarde first appears in US birth records in 1885 — 140 years ago. The typical Hildegarde alive today was born around 1918, making them about 107 years old. About 300 people named Hildegarde are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Hildegarde most popular?
Hildegarde peaked in 1901, reaching #559 nationally. See the whole 1901 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Hildegard to Hildegarde
The story of Hildegarde
Hildegard of Bingen died in 1179 having done more separate things well than most centuries manage. She composed a body of liturgical music that is still recorded and performed. She wrote two works on the natural world and human illness that read like field notes rather than borrowed authority. She described her visions in three long books and had them examined and approved rather than suppressed. And she compiled the Lingua Ignota, a constructed vocabulary of around a thousand invented words, mostly nouns for plants, body parts and church offices, together with an alphabet of twenty-three letters to write them in. Nobody knows what it was for. In 2012 she was named a Doctor of the Church, one of only four women to hold the title.
Meaning
battle-shelter
Old German hild, battle, joined to gard, an enclosure or place of protection, the same element behind garden and yard. The compound names a shelter in war rather than a warlike person, which is a considerably gentler thing than the first half suggests.
How the name formed
- Hildegard
- Hildegarde
- Hilda
Related forms: Hildegard · Hildegarde · Hildegard · Ildegarda
Pronouncing Hildegarde
HIL-duh-gard
Three syllables with the stress at the front. The final e is silent in English and the German original does not have it at all, which makes this spelling a decoration rather than a difference.
Nicknames for Hildegarde
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
- 1885
- Most girls named
- 1915124 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #559reached in 1901
- Change vs 1960
- +160.0%13 in 1961, 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.
Hildegarde in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Hildegard in German — same name
- Hildegarde in French — spelling variant
- Hildegard in Dutch — same name
- Ildegarda in Italian — same name
Hildegardes among us
people named Hildegarde 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
Hildegarde 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 remarkable historical figure rather than a vague tradition.
- The meaning is transparent once the two German elements are pointed out.
- Hilda sits inside it as a short form that stands on its own.
- It is long, and the spelling will need giving letter by letter for life.
- The generation that used it in America is now extremely old.
- The silent final e adds nothing audible and is dropped in the language the name came from.
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Hildegarde
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Hildegardes are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 300 people named Hildegarde are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Hildegarde in 2025?
- Hildegarde is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Hildegarde with classmates?
- Hildegarde will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More H names
The most-given names starting with H, all years combined.
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Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Hildegarde? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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