Barbara — #859 US girls' name

What the Data Says About Barbara

The Social Security Administration has registered 1,436,402 babies named Barbara between 1880 and 2024, spanning 145 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a girl's name, Barbara currently holds the #859 rank among girls for 2024. The name reached its historical peak in 1947, when 48,800 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Barbara performed strongest in the 1940s, accumulating 425,267 births during that ten-year window. Across the 15 decades of recorded activity, Barbara shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in New York, which accounts for 147,271 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by Pennsylvania and California. In total, SSA state-level files list Barbara in 51 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Barbara in our reference dataset. These figures derive from SSA's annual national and state-level name files, which include any name appearing at least five times in a given year or state-year; names below that threshold are suppressed for privacy and therefore excluded from the totals shown here. The 1,436,402 total represents a lower bound — actual usage may be higher in years or states where the count fell below the disclosure floor. This page is provided for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute personal, legal, or naming advice.