Betty
Betty is a girl's name that peaked in 1930, when it was the 2nd most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 1,113th. About 329,000 Bettys are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 78.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Betty boys named Betty
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 1,004,857
- Estimated living today
- 329,000
- Median age today
- 78
- Peak year
- 1930
- Best rank
- 2nd
- Rank in 2025
- 1,113th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 1,001,238 / 3,619
How old the living Bettys are
born that year still alive today
Of the 1,004,857 babies given the name since 1880, about 329,000 are alive — 33 in every hundred. Roughly 3,300 of them are children and 277,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1947 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Notable Bettys
- Betty White (1922–2021)American actress and comedian
- Betty Williams (1943–2020)Northern Irish peace activist
- Betty Ford (1918–2011)First Lady of the United States from 1974 to 1977
- Betty Friedan (1921–2006)American feminist writer and activist
- Betty Grable (1916–1973)American actress and pin-up girl
- Betty Cuthbert (1938–2017)Australian sprinter
- Betty Hutton (1921–2007)American actress
- Betty Compson (1897–1974)American actress
People named Betty with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Betty is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Betty is most concentrated in West Virginia (2.9×), Arkansas (2.2×), Oklahoma (2.0×), Kentucky (2.0×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1930
The most popular girls’ names the year Betty peaked:
Betty elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France girls | Betty | 14,920 | 108th |
| England and Wales girls | Betty | 2,085 | 349th |
| Norway girls | Betty | 255 | 198th |
| Ireland girls | Betty | 37 | 586th |
| Belgium girls | Betty | 26 | 743rd |
| Scotland girls | Betty | 16 | 652nd |
| Northern Ireland girls | Betty | 12 | 350th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Betty: rank by region
In 1997, Betty was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wallonia | Betty | 363 | 6 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Betty by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 6 | 345th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Betty among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Betty | 117 | 187 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Betty lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 669 women called Betty were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ourense | Betty | 9 | 0.057 | 960 |
| Alicante/Alacant | Betty | 45 | 0.044 | 1,457 |
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Betty | 24 | 0.043 | 1,727 |
| Balears, Illes | Betty | 26 | 0.041 | 1,484 |
| Lleida | Betty | 8 | 0.036 | 1,531 |
| Barcelona | Betty | 111 | 0.036 | 1,471 |
Listed in 30 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 22 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Betty against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.