Debby
given name · Latin script
Meaning: A diminutive of the female given name Deborah
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈdɛbi/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Debby is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- NLNetherlands1 in 4.4K(measured from records)
- TWTaiwan≈1 in 11K
- NGNigeria≈1 in 13K
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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 397 (measured from records)
- 1 in 4.4K (inferred from the name graph)
≈69,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Netherlands
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
A diminutive of the female given name Deborah.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 7 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Debby 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈69,000 est. | ≈1 in 20K | — | Debby | 17 |
| NG Nigeria | — | ≈17,000 est. | ≈1 in 13K | — | Debby | 33 |
| US United States | — | 8,026 | 1 in 41K | 8K | Debby | 397 |
| NL Netherlands | #439 | 3,918 | 1 in 4.4K | 3.9K | Debby | 88 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈2,700 est. | ≈1 in 25K | 3 | Debby | 157 |
| TW Taiwan | — | ≈2,100 est. | ≈1 in 11K | — | Debby | 48 |
| HK Hong Kong | #708 | ≈1,600 est. | ≈1 in 4.6K | — | Debby | 28 |
| BE Belgium | — | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 7.6K | 7 | Debby | 54 |
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; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); Statbel — Prénoms nouveau-nés (newborns). 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).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Devorà Ascarellib. 1600ITnot in their usual nameItalian poet
- Debora Vogelb. 1900UAnot in their usual namePolish poet and painter
- Debora Cahnb. 1950USnot in their usual nameAmerican television writer
- Debora Shugerb. 1953USnot in their usual nameAmerican literary critic and historian
- Debby Booneb. 1956USAmerican singer (born 1956)
- Debora Capriogliob. 1968ITnot in their usual nameItalian actress
- Debora Serracchianib. 1970ITnot in their usual nameItalian politician
- Debora Magnaghib. 1970ITnot in their usual nameItalian actress
- Debora Kahn-Sriberb. 1974FRnot in their usual namedaughter of Marie Laforêt
- Debby BishopGBBritish actress
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 41 sources across 29 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 8K | #2,869 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018) | — | 3.9K | #511 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017) | — | 3.7K | #909 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1959 | 890 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1958 | 795 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1960 | 668 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1957 | 661 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1961 | 590 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1962 | 503 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1956 | 461 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1963 | 433 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1955 | 384 | — |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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 Debby mean, and where does it come from?
- A diminutive of the female given name Deborah. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- What are other forms of the name Debby?
- In the etymology graph, Debbie, Debora and Deb are forms of the same name in other languages; it is recorded as a short form of Deborah.
- How do you pronounce Debby?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈdɛbi/ (IPA) for English.
- Is Debby a male or female name?
- Debby 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.
- In which country does Debby have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 69 thousand people named Debby in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled debby.
- Where is Debby most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Debby is densest in the Netherlands — about 1 in 4.4 thousand people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Debby?
- In the United States, the national register counted 8,026 people named Debby in 2020, about 1 in 41 thousand residents.
- How common is Debby compared with other names?
- In the Netherlands, Debby is the 439th most common given name of 101,916 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Debby?
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/debbyThe 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, “Debby” — the 439th most common given name in Netherlands. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.