Umberto
Masculine · “bright warrior”
An Italian king was shot by an anarchist who had sailed from New Jersey to do it. Gaetano Bresci was a silk weaver in Paterson, saved for the passage, went home, and killed Umberto the First in 1900 — an assassination planned in an American mill town and carried out in Lombardy.
How old is the name Umberto?
Umberto first appears in US birth records in 1911 — 114 years ago. The typical Umberto alive today was born around 1956, making them about 69 years old. About 500 people named Umberto are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Umberto most popular?
Umberto peaked in 1912, reaching #1137 nationally. See the whole 1912 chart.
Where it comes from
From a Germanic compound with a disputed first element to Umberto
The story of Umberto
Bresci went because of a massacre: two years earlier troops had fired on a bread riot in Milan with artillery, killing scores of people, and the general responsible had been decorated by the king. Paterson had a large community of Italian anarchists in the silk mills; they drew lots, or he volunteered, depending on the account. He was sentenced to life and died in prison within a year, officially by suicide. The killing produced an American panic about immigrant radicals that outlasted everybody involved.
Meaningscholars disagree
bright warrior, or bright Hun
The Germanic compound behind Humbert and Umberto joins a word for brightness or fame to a first element that is disputed: a word for a warrior, or the tribal name of the Huns, which turns up in Germanic names more often than modern readers expect. Italian took the name from the Lombards and it became a royal name in Savoy, which is why it belongs to Italy and not to Germany.
How the name formed
- a Germanic compound with a disputed first element
- the Lombards bring it into Italy
- Umberto becomes a name of the House of Savoy
- a king is assassinated in 1900
- the name appears in American records with Italian migration
Related forms: Umberto · Humbert · Humbert
Pronouncing Umberto
oom-BEHR-toh
Three syllables with the weight in the middle. The initial vowel is closer to the one in book than the one in umbrella, which English readers rarely get.
Nicknames for Umberto
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
- 1911
- Most boys named
- 191530 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1137reached in 1912
- Change vs 2011
- 0.0%5 in 2021, 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.
Umberto in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Umberto in Italian — same name
- Humbert in French — same name
- Humbert in German — same name
Umbertos among us
people named Umberto 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
Umberto 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 marks an Italian family history clearly and is handsome once heard.
- Berto and Bert are both available and belong to different worlds.
- It is unrepeated in America while being entirely ordinary in Italy.
- English speakers will use the wrong first vowel and stress it correctly by accident.
- The French form of the same name carries an association from a famous novel.
- It is rare enough in America to need spelling out constantly.
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Umberto
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Umbertos are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 500 people named Umberto are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Umberto in 2025?
- Umberto is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Umberto with classmates?
- Umberto will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More U names
The most-given names starting with U, all years combined.
Uriel#445 · Ulysses#1196 · Uriah#648 · Ulises#1038 · Unknown#2718 · Urijah#2833 · Urban#5208 · Umar#1159
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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