Bessie — #9521 US girls' name

What the Data Says About Bessie

The Social Security Administration has registered 170,123 babies named Bessie between 1880 and 2024, spanning 145 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a girl's name, Bessie currently holds the #9521 rank among girls for 2024. The name reached its historical peak in 1916, when 4,122 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Bessie performed strongest in the 1910s, accumulating 33,859 births during that ten-year window. Across the 15 decades of recorded activity, Bessie shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in Alabama, which accounts for 7,540 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by North Carolina and Georgia. In total, SSA state-level files list Bessie in 50 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Bessie 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 170,123 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.