Roberta
Feminine · “bright fame”
Roberta is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 171,548 girls against 782 boys since 1880. See Roberta as a boy name
Roberta is the feminine of one of the great Germanic names, and it is recorded here for boys as well as girls. For one stretch of the last century it was also the title of a Broadway show that produced a song almost everybody can hum.
How old is the name Roberta?
Roberta was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Roberta alive today was born around 1945, making them about 80 years old. About 96,500 people named Roberta are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Roberta most popular?
Roberta peaked in 1936, reaching #64 nationally. Today it ranks #2778, 2,714 places below that high. See the whole 1936 chart.
Roberta appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From Hrodebert to Roberta
The story of Roberta
A musical opened in New York in the early nineteen-thirties about an American football player who inherits a Paris dress shop, and it was called Roberta. The plot has not aged well and nobody revives it. What came out of it was a song, written for the show almost as an afterthought and slowed down at the last minute, which became one of the most recorded pieces of the century and is still being covered. The show also went straight into a film with Astaire and Rogers, which is how the title reached every radio and cinema in the country. A name attached to a hit like that moves, and this one did, in exactly the years the show was running.
Meaning
bright fame
Robert joins two Germanic elements, one meaning fame and one meaning bright, and the reading is settled. Roberta is the Latin-style feminine built on it, which English had to borrow because it has no way of making one itself.
How the name formed
- Hrodebert
- Robert
- Roberta
Related forms: Roberta · Roberta · Roberte
Pronouncing Roberta
ruh-BUR-tuh
Three syllables with the weight in the middle. In Italian and Spanish the first vowel is clearer and the r is rolled.
Nicknames for Roberta
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
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 19424,105 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #64reached in 1936
- Change vs 2022
- −6.2%61 in 2025, from 65
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.
Roberta in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Roberta in Italian — same name
- Roberta in Spanish — same name
- Roberte in French — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, New York.
Robertas among us
people named Roberta are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 26,349 born in 2025 was named Roberta
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Vivian test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Roberta's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Vivian climbed just as high around 1920, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Vivian's path sketches the road Roberta is walking now.
Roberta 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 Roberta is headed
Roberta 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.
Roberta beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Roberta in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is settled and documented, and the name behind it is one of the oldest in continuous European use.
- It offers three established short forms, all of them ordinary names.
- It works in English, Spanish and Italian households without any adjustment.
- In America it reads as belonging to an older generation, which is either the appeal or the obstacle.
- This spelling goes overwhelmingly to girls but is recorded for boys as well, so a form will occasionally guess wrong.
- The short forms are shared with a great many other names, so a Bobbie is rarely the only one in a room.
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What they receive
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Roberta
Feminine · #2778 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Robertas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 96,500 people named Roberta are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Roberta in 2025?
- Roberta ranks #2778 among US girl names in 2025, with 61 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Roberta?
- About 1 in every 26,349 US girls born in 2025 was named Roberta — 61 in all.
- Will my child share the name Roberta with classmates?
- Roberta will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Roberta
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Eugenia#2778 · Amour#2778 · Wynona#2778 · Joie#2778 · Bennie#2778 · Havyn#2778 · Wisdom#2778 · Aela#2778
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Roberta? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Roberta and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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