Barbara: Popularity, Rank and History

By the Baby Name Data Editorial Team · Last updated: October 2026

Barbara has been recorded in U.S. Social Security Administration baby name data in 145 of the 145 years covered by this site, first appearing in 1880 and most recently in 2024. Across that whole span, parents recorded 1,440,537 births with this name, split between 1,436,402 girls and 4,135 boys. Because the larger side of that split is girls, this page follows the girls ranking table as its main story, while still reporting the combined total above so the name can be compared fairly with every other name in the top 100 all-time list. Every figure here is a direct count from the SSA file: there are no estimates, no projections, and no names added from any other source.

The single biggest year for Barbara was 1947, when 48,800 girls received the name and it reached rank 4 nationally. A name's peak year matters because it shows the moment when the name competed most successfully against every other name chosen that year. Rank and count tell slightly different stories: the count can rise simply because more babies were born overall, while the rank and the share of births strip out that effect. In 1947, Barbara accounted for 2.75% of all recorded girls births, which is the cleanest measure of how dominant it was at its height compared with peaks reached in smaller or larger birth years.

Barbara by decade

The decade table below is where the long story of Barbara becomes easiest to read. A decade total smooths out single-year spikes and shows whether a name was a brief fashion or a durable fixture. Names that hold high decade totals for forty or fifty years behave very differently from names that post one enormous decade and then fade, and Barbara can be placed on that spectrum directly from these ten-year sums and the best rank it managed inside each decade.

In the 1880s, Barbara recorded 1,820 births for girls across the decade, with a best annual rank of 124, placing it well down the popularity order for that period. In the 1890s, Barbara recorded 2,783 births for girls across the decade, with a best annual rank of 145, placing it well down the popularity order for that period. In the 1900s, Barbara recorded 3,999 births for girls across the decade, with a best annual rank of 126, placing it well down the popularity order for that period. During the 1910s, Barbara stayed inside the top 100 for girls, with a best rank of 60 and 23,704 births recorded over the ten years, a solid and visible presence without quite reaching the very top of the table. In the 1920s, Barbara was a top-ten name for girls, reaching as high as rank 7 and recording 97,210 births across the decade, one of its strongest ten-year stretches in the entire file. In the 1930s, Barbara was a top-ten name for girls, reaching as high as rank 2 and recording 296,419 births across the decade, one of its strongest ten-year stretches in the entire file. In the 1940s, Barbara was a top-ten name for girls, reaching as high as rank 2 and recording 425,267 births across the decade, one of its strongest ten-year stretches in the entire file. In the 1950s, Barbara was a top-ten name for girls, reaching as high as rank 4 and recording 345,723 births across the decade, one of its strongest ten-year stretches in the entire file.

During the 1960s, Barbara stayed inside the top 100 for girls, with a best rank of 12 and 159,774 births recorded over the ten years, a solid and visible presence without quite reaching the very top of the table. During the 1970s, Barbara stayed inside the top 100 for girls, with a best rank of 41 and 42,238 births recorded over the ten years, a solid and visible presence without quite reaching the very top of the table. In the 1980s, Barbara recorded 19,138 births for girls across the decade, with a best annual rank of 119, placing it well down the popularity order for that period. In the 1990s, Barbara recorded 8,855 births for girls across the decade, with a best annual rank of 207, placing it well down the popularity order for that period. In the 2000s, Barbara recorded 4,721 births for girls across the decade, with a best annual rank of 506, placing it well down the popularity order for that period. In the 2010s, Barbara recorded 3,256 births for girls across the decade, with a best annual rank of 696, placing it well down the popularity order for that period. In the 2020s, Barbara recorded 1,495 births for girls across the decade, with a best annual rank of 860, placing it well down the popularity order for that period.

Rank history in selected years

This table samples the record at intervals so the shape of the history is visible at a glance: the birth count, the national rank among girls, and the share of all girls births for that year. Shares are included deliberately. In the 1880 file the recorded birth population is far smaller than in the peak birth years of the twentieth century, so a modest count in 1880 can represent a larger share, and a larger rank, than the same count would earn today. Reading count, rank, and share together is the method this site recommends on every page, and it is explained in full on the methodology page linked in the footer.

Recent years and the other side of the table

Between 2010 and 2024 the annual count moved from 410 to 313, a change of -23.7 percent, which is the clearest short-hand for where Barbara stands right now: losing ground in the most recent data. In 2000, for comparison, Barbara recorded 533 births for girls, and in 2010 it recorded 410. Placing 2024 between those two reference points shows whether the latest figure is part of a steady climb, a steady slide, or a plateau after earlier movement. None of these short windows should be read on their own: a name recovering from a low base can post large percentage gains while still ranking modestly, and a name easing down from a peak can lose percentage points while remaining one of the most used names in the country.

Barbara also appears on the boys side of the file, with 4,135 recorded births between 1880 and 2024. That secondary use is much smaller than the 1,436,402 births recorded for girls, and SSA ranks each sex separately, so the rank history above follows the girls table only. Counting both sides together, Barbara totals 1,440,537 recorded births, which is the figure that places it at number 21 on this site's all-time combined list. Readers comparing names should keep the two sides separate, because a rank earned among girls and a rank earned among boys describe two different fields of competing names in the same year.

To explore further, compare Barbara with the full rankings for its peak year (1947) through the years index, browse the decade rankings, or return to the complete A–Z list of name pages. The state pages show how the biggest states ranked names in 2024, which often differs from the national order in the smaller details even when the same few names lead both tables.

Frequently asked questions

How many babies named Barbara were born in 2024?
In 2024 the SSA recorded 313 girls named Barbara, ranked 860 among girls that year.

When was Barbara most popular?
Barbara peaked in 1947 with 48,800 births for girls, reaching rank 4 that year in SSA records.

How many people named Barbara appear in SSA records since 1880?
SSA records show 1,440,537 births named Barbara from 1880 through 2024, counting both sexes together.

Disclaimer: Baby Name Data publishes statistics drawn from U.S. Social Security Administration baby name records. Figures are counts of Social Security card applications by year of birth and are shown for general information only. Counts below five in any year, sex, or state are not released by the SSA and are not estimated here. Nothing on this page is advice about what to name a child.

Data: U.S. Social Security Administration baby name records, 1880–2024, retrieved October 2026. Source: ssa.gov/oact/babynames/