Ruth — #172 US girls' name

What the Data Says About Ruth

The Social Security Administration has registered 834,300 babies named Ruth between 1880 and 2024, spanning 145 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a girl's name, Ruth currently holds the #172 rank among girls for 2024. The name reached its historical peak in 1920, when 26,102 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Ruth performed strongest in the 1920s, accumulating 218,521 births during that ten-year window. Across the 15 decades of recorded activity, Ruth shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in Pennsylvania, which accounts for 69,757 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by New York and Ohio. In total, SSA state-level files list Ruth in 51 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Ruth 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 834,300 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.