Rebecca
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Hebrew origin; from Rivqah, meaning uncertain, often explained as 'to bind' or 'captivating'
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ɹɪbɛkə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Rebecca 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 74th most common given name.
- AUAustralia≈1 in 279(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 346
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 396
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Rebecca itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- #139 (measured from records)
- 8 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 649 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 279 (inferred from the name graph)
645,350 people, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Australia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled רבקה in IL Israel, RO Romania and Rebeca in BR Brazil.
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)
Hebrew origin; from Rivqah, meaning uncertain, often explained as 'to bind' or 'captivating'.
Sources 1
- Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Attested across 7 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Rebecca 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 | #74 | 645,350 | 1 in 515 | 645K | Rebecca | 649 |
| NG Nigeria | #125 | ≈210,000 est. | ≈1 in 997 | — | Rebecca | 109 |
| GB United Kingdom | #55 | ≈190,000 est. | ≈1 in 346 | 8 | Rebecca | 405 |
| BR Brazil | #444 | 160,693as Rebeca | 1 in 1.3K | 161K | Rebeca | 179 |
| PH Philippines | #150 | ≈130,000 est. | ≈1 in 838 | — | Rebecca | 124 |
| AU Australia | #31 | ≈91,000 est. | ≈1 in 279 | 97 | Rebecca | 334 |
| RO Romania | #46 | ≈42,000 est. | ≈1 in 505 | — | רבקה | 47 |
| IL Israel | #16 | ≈29,000 est. | ≈1 in 297 | 158 | רבקה | 91 |
| NZ New Zealand | #53 | ≈12,000 est. | ≈1 in 396 | 11 | Rebecca | 184 |
645,350 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); CBS Israel — Names given to babies (1949–present); NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present). 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)
Rebecca 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.
Hebrew, perhaps ‘heifer’, or ‘bound’. An Old Testament name which has occasionally been used in Ireland. Rebekah, an alternative spelling, has also been noted, though this is much rarer.
as a nameIrish first names
In English, A female given name originating from the Bible [in turn from Hebrew], in regular use since the Reformation.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Italian, Dall'ebraico Rivqah, forse ‘colei che avvince/lega’; etimologia tradizionale biblica.
as a nameDizionario Dei Nomi e Cognomi Italiani
In Italian, Forse dall'ebraico ribgah 'rete' in senso traslato; etimologia dubbia.
as a nameDizionario Dei Nomi e Cognomi Italiani
In Italian, matronímico do nome bíblico Rebecca, f. da matriarca Rebecca
as a nameDicionário dos sobrenomes italianos
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)
- Pocahontasb. 1596USnot in their usual nameAmerican native woman
- Dolly Partonb. 1946USnot in their usual nameAmerican singer, songwriter and actress
- Rebecca De Mornayb. 1959USAmerican actress
- Rebecca Romijnb. 1972USAmerican actress and model (born 1972)
- Rebecca Maderb. 1977GBEnglish actress
- Rebecca Hallb. 1982GBEnglish actress and filmmaker (born 1982)
- Rebecca Fergusonb. 1983SESwedish actress (born 1983)
- Emily Kinneyb. 1985USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress and singer-songwriter
- Becky Hillb. 1994GBnot in their usual nameBritish singer (born 1994)
- Rebecca Blackb. 1997USAmerican singer
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 131 sources across 68 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 645K | #61 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 13K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 13K | #1,422 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 4.4K | #3,654 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 3K | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 872 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 448 | #61 |
| AU Australia | NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present) | 2008 | 84 | #94 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 69 | #1,422 |
| AU Australia | QLD BDM — Top 100 Baby Names Queensland (1960–present) | 2006 | 55 | — |
Reference works 7
- 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)
- 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 are other forms of the name Rebecca?
- In the etymology graph, Rebeca, Rebekah and Reba are forms of the same name in other languages; Becky, Bekki and Becci are recorded short or pet forms.
- What does the name Rebecca mean, and where does it come from?
- Hebrew origin; from Rivqah, meaning uncertain, often explained as 'to bind' or 'captivating'. Recorded by Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education).
- Is Rebecca a male or female name?
- Rebecca 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 Rebecca have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 645 thousand people named Rebecca, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled rebecca.
- How common is the name Rebecca?
- In the United States, the national register counted 645,350 people named Rebecca in 2020, about 1 in 515 residents.
- How common is Rebecca compared with other names?
- In the United States, Rebecca is the 74th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Rebecca?
- A machine transcription gives /ɹɪbɛkə/ (IPA) for English.
What do you want to know about Rebecca?
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/rebeccaThe 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, “Rebecca” — the 74th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.