Webster
Masculine · “a weaver”
Webster is a woman's job title. Old English marked female agents with -ster: a webbe wove and a webster was a woman who wove, a baker baked and a bakester baked, and spinster is the only one of them English still recognizes as feminine.
How old is the name Webster?
Webster was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Webster alive today was born around 1933, making them about 92 years old. About 1,700 people named Webster are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Webster most popular?
Webster peaked in 1890, reaching #376 nationally. Today it ranks #6803, 6,427 places below that high. See the whole 1890 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From webba to Webster
The story of Webster
Old English had a working pair of agent suffixes, -ere for men and -estre for women, and weaving, baking and brewing were largely women's trades in the early medieval household. As those trades moved out of the house and into guilds, the men who took them over kept the words, and the feminine marking became invisible; by the fourteenth century a webster could be either. The surnames Webster, Baxter and Brewster all froze at that point. The name reached America and became a given name in the nineteenth century, helped considerably by Daniel Webster and by Noah Webster's dictionary; its best year on file is 1890.
Meaning
a weaver, originally a female one
From Old English webbestre, the feminine of webba, a weaver, formed with the -estre suffix that marked a female agent. The same suffix gives Baxter from a female baker and Brewster from a female brewer. By the Middle Ages the gender distinction had eroded and the -ster words were applied to men, which is why the surnames are all men's; spinster kept the original sense and acquired a new one.
How the name formed
- webba
- webbestre
- Webster
Related forms: Weaver · Webb · Weber
Pronouncing Webster
WEB-stur
Two syllables with the stress on the first and the second reduced. Identical to the dictionary and to the surname.
Nicknames for Webster
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 boys named
- 1915101 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #376reached in 1890
- Change vs 2022
- −29.4%12 in 2025, from 17
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.
Webster in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Weaver in English — related form
- Webb in English — related form
- Weber in German — related form
Websters among us
people named Webster are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 142,340 born in 2025 was named Webster
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Webster 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
Webster beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Webster in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled Old English meaning with an unusually interesting grammatical history.
- Two American historical figures of the surname behind it.
- Web and Webb are both usable short forms.
- The dictionary is the first association for nearly every American.
- The -ster suffix originally marked a woman, which is a curiosity rather than a problem.
- It reads as a nineteenth-century name, because that is its period.
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Webster
Masculine · #6803 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Websters are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,700 people named Webster are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Webster in 2025?
- Webster ranks #6803 among US boy names in 2025, with 12 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Webster?
- About 1 in every 142,340 US boys born in 2025 was named Webster — 12 in all.
- Will my child share the name Webster with classmates?
- Webster will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Webster
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Zeb#6803 · Buster#6803 · Fabien#6803 · Eston#6803 · Tyjuan#6803 · Fuad#6803 · Aaiden#6803 · Sanford#6803
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Webster? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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