Barbara
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Greek ‘strange’; used in Ireland and to anglicise Gormley
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/bɑɹbəɹə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Barbara is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country, where it is the 32nd most common given name.
- IEIreland≈1 in 204(inferred from the name graph)
- ATAustria≈1 in 213
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 225
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- #78 (measured from records)
- 5 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 617 (measured from records)
- 1 in 82 (inferred from the name graph)
943,006 people, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Poland
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled ברברה in PL Poland.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Greek ‘strange’; used in Ireland and to anglicise Gormley.
Sources 1
- Irish first names
Attested across 17 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Barbara counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #32 | 943,006 | 1 in 353 | 942K | Barbara | 617 |
| PL Poland | — | 467,697 | 1 in 82 | 468K | ברברה | 17 |
| IT Italy | #76 | ≈270,000 est. | ≈1 in 231 | listed | Barbara | 193 |
| GB United Kingdom | #48 | ≈260,000 est. | ≈1 in 251 | 7.3K | Barbara | 299 |
| DE Germany | #70 | ≈210,000 est. | ≈1 in 380 | — | Barbara | 283 |
| AT Austria | #25 | ≈42,000 est. | ≈1 in 213 | 8K | Barbara | 169 |
| IE Ireland | #24 | ≈25,000 est. | ≈1 in 204 | — | Barbara | 123 |
| NZ New Zealand | #37 | ≈22,000 est. | ≈1 in 225 | — | Barbara | 152 |
943,006 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20); dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names); Statistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Barbara is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, from the female given name Barbara 'the barbarian woman'
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
In Spanish, feminine singular of barbaro
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Italian, feminino de Barbaro; pode ser matronímico ou indicar origem da cidade Barbara.
as a nameDicionário dos sobrenomes italianos
In Italian, Dal greco bárbaros, 'straniera'. S. Barbara, martire.
as a nameDizionario Dei Nomi e Cognomi Italiani
In Swedish, Barbara är ett grekiskt-latinskt namn bildat till grekiskans bárbaros ’som inte talar grekiska; främmande’. I både den rikssvenska och finlandssvenska almanackan 4 december, efter ett helgon (300-talet).
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Saint Barbarab. 273TRearly Christian saint and martyr, from Nicomedia (273-306)
- Barbara McClintockb. 1902USAmerican scientist and cytogeneticist
- Barbara O'Neilb. 1910USactress (1910-1980)
- Barbara Bushb. 1925USFirst Lady of the United States from 1989 to 1993 (1925–2018)
- Barbara Liskovb. 1939USAmerican computer scientist
- Barbara Prammerb. 1954ATpolitician from Austria (1954-2014)
- Barbara Kingsolverb. 1955USAmerican author, poet and essayist
- Barbara Beckerb. 1966DEGerman fashion designer
- Bárbara Morib. 1978UYMexican actress and model
- Barbara Bushb. 1981USAmerican health care activist; daughter of George W. Bush (born 1981)
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 136 sources across 64 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 942K | #29 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 468K | #7 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20) | 2026 | 468K | #7 |
| AT Austria | Statistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024) | 2024 | 8K | #771 |
| PL Poland | Ministry of Digitalization — Imiona nadawane dzieciom w Polsce (2000–present) | 2025 | 735 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 718 | #29 |
Reference works 8
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Barbara mean, and where does it come from?
- Greek ‘strange’; used in Ireland and to anglicise Gormley. Recorded by Irish first names.
- What are other forms of the name Barbara?
- In the etymology graph, Bobbie, Bobbi and Varvara are forms of the same name in other languages; Barb, Barbie and Bärbel are recorded short or pet forms.
- Is Barbara a male or female name?
- Barbara is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- How do you pronounce Barbara?
- A machine transcription gives /bɑɹbəɹə/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Barbara have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 943 thousand people named Barbara, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled barbara.
- Where is Barbara most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Barbara is densest in Poland — about 1 in 82 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Barbara?
- In the United States, the national register counted 943,006 people named Barbara in 2020, about 1 in 353 residents.
- How common is Barbara compared with other names?
- In the United States, Barbara is the 32nd most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Barbara?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/barbaraThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Barbara” — the 32nd most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.