Hurbert
Masculine · “Bright army”
Hurbert is Herbert written the way it sounds, and it only works because English long ago stopped telling er, ir and ur apart. The name underneath is an old Germanic warrior's compound, 'bright army', carried by a mining engineer who fed a whole occupied country before he became president.
How old is the name Hurbert?
Hurbert first appears in US birth records in 1891 — 134 years ago. The typical Hurbert alive today was born around 1929, making them about 96 years old. About 100 people named Hurbert are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Hurbert most popular?
Hurbert peaked in 1891, reaching #841 nationally. See the whole 1891 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Heriberht to Hurbert
The story of Hurbert
In Middle English the vowels in fern, fir and fur were three different sounds, and the spellings er, ir and ur recorded the difference. Over the following centuries most English accents merged all three into one, which is why a Hurbert and a Herbert now sound exactly alike, though Scottish speakers can still tell them apart. Herbert was a common American name when Hurbert appeared, and its most famous bearer was then an engineer: from 1914 Herbert Hoover ran the Commission for Relief in Belgium, which shipped food to millions of people in occupied Belgium and northern France through the whole of the First World War, years before he became president.
Meaning
Bright army, a spelling of Herbert
Herbert joins the Germanic words for 'army' (hari) and 'bright' (beraht). Hurbert is a spelling by ear.
How the name formed
- Heriberht
- Herbert
- Hurbert
Related forms: Herbert · Erberto · Heriberto · Herbert
Pronouncing Hurbert
HUR-bert
Said exactly like Herbert.
Nicknames for Hurbert
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
- 1891
- Most boys named
- 192828 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #841reached in 1891
- Change vs 1977
- −16.7%5 in 1980, 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.
Hurbert in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Herbert in English — spelling variant
- Erberto in Italian — same name
- Heriberto in Spanish — same name
- Herbert in French — same name
Hurberts among us
people named Hurbert 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
Hurbert 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
- Sounds exactly like Herbert, a name everyone knows.
- A settled Germanic meaning, 'bright army'.
- Comes with Herb and Bert as ready short forms.
- Almost everyone will write it Herbert, so the u will need pointing out every time.
- Herbert reads as an older-generation name in most of America, and this spelling carries the same feel.
- In Britain 'a herbert' is mild slang for a foolish young man, which a British listener might hear.
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Hurbert
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Hurberts are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 100 people named Hurbert are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Hurbert in 2025?
- Hurbert is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Hurbert with classmates?
- Hurbert 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 Hurbert? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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