Bethlehem

loc · Latin script

Meaning: from the biblical place name; used by pilgrims or as Jewish name

Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

/bɛθlihɛm/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Bethlehem is a name written in the Latin script, most frequently recorded in the United States.

United States (inferred from the name graph)

no count published

Sources
16 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

from the biblical place name; used by pilgrims or as Jewish name

Sources 1

  • Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Bethlehem counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.

Where Bethlehem is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States—869—16
NL Netherlands—781—1
SE Sweden—46——
NO Norway—33——
FI Finland—15——

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; CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup). 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Bethlehem is also recorded as 2 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • French name5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France

    Also written Bethleem, Bethléem, Bethléhem

  • a separate name3 spellings in the group

    Also written Petlemm

34 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Bethlehem is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In English, town, Jordan; city. PA;

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

  • In Dutch, Bethlehem (a city in the West Bank, Palestine)

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In German, Bethlehem (a city in Palestine)

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Latin, alternative form of Bēthlehēmum

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

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)

1950196019701980Bethlehem Nopece, b. 1950Lael Bethlehem, b. 1967Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu, b. 1980

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)

FormalDear Colleague,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 24 sources across 12 countries.

Official registers attesting Bethlehem
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020869#13,739
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—46#14,343
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—33#15,021
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)202026—
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)201924—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)201524—
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)201820—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)201719—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)201019—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)200419—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)201917—
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)201717—

Reference works 4

  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
  • Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)

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 Bethlehem mean, and where does it come from?
from the biblical place name; used by pilgrims or as Jewish name Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
How do you pronounce Bethlehem?
A machine transcription gives /bɛθlihɛm/ (IPA) for English.
In which country does Bethlehem have the most bearers?
Bethlehem is most frequently recorded in the United States.

What do you want to know about Bethlehem?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

Please leave out anyone's personal details (see Privacy).

Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/bethlehem

The 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, “Bethlehem”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Bethlehem parses inside a full name →