Deby
Deby was last recorded in 1979, when 5 babies were given it; 263 Americans have been recorded with it between 1948 and 1979 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Deby by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
What does Deby mean?
Wiktionary, English section
Deby is “a female given name.”
Meaning: Wiktionary, English section, as of Sep 25, 2026 (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
How popular is Deby?
Unranked in 2025
Its last girls’ rank on record is #10,572, in 1979; SSA lists a name only in years with 5 or more births.
29 babies in 1959, the peak
Deby peaked in 1959, when 29 girls were given it, #2,113 among girls’ names. It was not recorded in 2025.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1979 | 5 | #10,572 | 3.1 |
| 1976 | 5 | #9,627 | 3.4 |
| 1970 | 7 | #6,496 | 4.0 |
| 1969 | 5 | #7,721 | 3.0 |
| 1966 | 8 | #4,964 | 4.7 |
| 1965 | 7 | #5,403 | 4.0 |
| 1964 | 12 | #3,923 | 6.3 |
| 1963 | 9 | #4,617 | 4.7 |
| 1962 | 16 | #3,195 | 8.1 |
| 1961 | 26 | #2,374 | 12.9 |
Every recorded year (21)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1960 | 25 | #2,383 | 12.4 |
| 1959 | 29 | #2,113 | 14.3 |
| 1958 | 20 | #2,593 | 9.9 |
| 1957 | 23 | #2,363 | 11.2 |
| 1956 | 15 | #3,075 | 7.5 |
| 1955 | 15 | #3,004 | 7.7 |
| 1954 | 11 | #3,538 | 5.7 |
| 1953 | 7 | #4,681 | 3.7 |
| 1952 | 6 | #5,041 | 3.2 |
| 1951 | 7 | #4,467 | 3.9 |
| 1948 | 5 | #5,419 | 2.9 |
Ranks and shares: girls’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all girls SSA recorded that year.
Is Deby a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Deby has been recorded only for girls: SSA lists no boys with the name in 21 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Deby: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Deby, and how old are they?
An estimated 219 Americans named Deby and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (83% of everyone recorded); the median is 67 years old and half are between 64 and 69. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 389 people named Deby (384 women and girls, 5 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 232 born in the U.S. The Census count is 1.7 times that prediction. Possible reasons: the Census counts people born abroad, whom SSA’s files leave out, and it records the name people give, which SSA may have recorded under another spelling or as part of a compound name.
Living estimate: SSA births carried forward with the survival rates in SSA’s cohort life tables (2024 Trustees Report) for each birth year and sex. How the estimate is made. Count: Census Bureau, first names in the 2020 Census (released April 14, 2026; names reported 100 or more times, with the Bureau’s disclosure-avoidance adjustment).
How common is the spelling Deby?
Deby is a less common spelling of Debbie: SSA has recorded 263 Deby and 188,287 Debbie since 1880.
Of these 8 names spelled alike, given to 205,851 babies since 1880, Deby is the sixth most given (<1% of them). In 2025 none of their 24 babies recorded by SSA was a Deby (SSA lists a name only with 5 or more babies of one sex).
Spelled alike: names in the SSA national file with the same pattern of letters and sounds and at most two letters apart, and Wiktionary’s listed forms; births since 1880 and in 2025, and each name’s peak year, from the SSA national file, published May 8, 2026. Some are separate names, not spellings of one.
Names that rose and fell in the same decades as Deby
Names whose births rose and fell across the same decades, measured on each decade’s share of births.
Similar histories: each decade’s share of births, from the SSA national file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
More about Deby and names like it
- Compare Deby and DebbieBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 1950sDeby peaked in 1959.
- California’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Deby since 1910.
- The top names of 1959The year the most babies were named Deby.
- The names of the Baby BoomersMost people named Deby alive today were born 1946-1964.
- Names starting with DMost given first.